Intel Demos 7Gpbs Wireless Docking 52
Lucas123 writes "Intel for the first time demonstrated the Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) docking specification using an Ultrabook, which was able to achieve 7Gbps performance, ten times the fastest Wi-Fi networks based on the IEEE 802.11n standard. The WiGig medium access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) control specification operates in the unlicensed 60GHz frequency band, which has more spectrum available than the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands used by existing Wi-Fi products. According to Ali Sadri, chairman of the WiGig Alliance, the specification also supports wireless implementations of HDMI and DisplayPort interfaces, as well as the High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) scheme used to protect digital content transmitted over those interfaces. It scales to allow transmission of both compressed and uncompressed video."
Re:worried about health effects (Score:4, Informative)
That's because no reasonable person expects there to be any effects. Wifi signal power is ridiculously low compared to many other applications of electromagnetic waves. Your microwave oven is allowed to leak more power than your wifi router is allowed to emit.
Some basic background (Score:5, Informative)
For those wondering who are too lazy to Google, 60 GHz is right in the middle of the resonance range of the oxygen molecule (O2), so it's attenuated by nothing but air. That limits its range to just a few kilometers at reasonable (read, unlicensed) power levels.
Of more practical interest, 60 GHz won't go through anything more solid than cloth. In particular interior walls block it. So this a in-the-same-room technology, and without some very fancy processing of multi-path bounce signals, it's basically a line of sight technology. In other words, a 60 GHz transmitter attached to your tower under your desk is going to have a hard time driving a monitor sitting on top of your desk. That's why the article waxes lyrical about laptops, which are usually set on top of the desk. Sadly, we're likely to be stuck with video cable for many years to come.
Of course silicon is dirt cheap (sand cheap?) these days, so possibly chips can be designed that can do that processing. I don't know what the latencies might be like though. It might be intolerable for controlling a mouse. You'd have to ask a radio guy.
Re:Some basic background (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Intel, wifi = disaster (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe you just don't know any better?
I know better, and the AC you responded to is correct. 802.11n works just fine with Windows XP and 7. I would love it to work well with Linux too as I use several Linux machines including a laptop that would benefit from the higher bandwidth. They just haven't quite gotten the bugs out of the system yet.
It works great with OS X machines too. Are you still going to imply it isn't a Linux problem?