TransferJet Consortium Works Towards Touch Data Transfer Tech 60
Iddo Genuth writes to tell us that many of the large tech companies have banded together in order to develop TransferJet technology. Discussed earlier this year, TransferJet promises to allow rapid data transfer between devices in close proximity. "The group of companies involved in the development of TransferJet has been tagged the 'TransferJet Consortium' and includes many industry giants such as Sony, Canon, Kodak, Nikon, Pioneer, Toshiba, Samsung and many others. The companies intend to market a broad array of products and services incorporating TransferJet technology with the intention of increasing its usage through the consumer electronics industry. With this new technology, there will be no need for access points or complex data transfer setups. By touching the two devices together, intuitive operation will kick in and the files will be transferred automatically."
Data Theft (Score:5, Insightful)
A short 3cm transmission distance minimizes any risks of data theft.
I do hope there's a bit more to it than that. There are all sorts of situations in which someone could bring a hostile device within 3cm of (say) a mobile phone without being noticed. For a start, consider a commuter train during rush hour.
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obviously both devices still have to activate their TransferJet feature so you won't accidentally start a transfer just by brushing your cellphone against someone else's. i think what they mean is that the devices need to be within 3 cm of each other during the transfer so that someone can't walk up behind you while you're transferring to an intended target and intercept the transmission.
so if you want to transfer sensitive data, you just need to survey the area within a 3 cm radius of your device to make s
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obviously both devices still have to activate their TransferJet feature so you won't accidentally start a transfer just by brushing your cellphone against someone else's.
I hope so. But, if this is the case, the article doesn't make it clear.
I think what they mean is that the devices need to be within 3 cm of each other during the transfer so that someone can't walk up behind you while you're transferring to an intended target and intercept the transmission.
I'm left to wonder how an innocent device can distinguish between another innocent device 3cm away and a malicious device 1m away with a correspondingly more powerful signal. Certainly a sufficiently powerful antenna could still eavesdrop on the signal, so I hope it's encrypted.
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yea, i think it's deceptive to assign a hard limit for the range of the radio transmission. obviously if you scale up the receiver you can intercept the signal from much further away.
but i think this is where the 3 cm optimal range is significant. if a transmission protocol is designed to be receivable for up to 3 ft, it'll be much easier to intercept it from 5-6 ft away with a slightly larger receiver. however, if the protocol is only designed for a range for 3 cm, then the signal will inherently be much w
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Sure, I agree a short-range system is better than a long-range one in this context, but I'm concerned that it may create an exaggerated sense of security, which may lead to skimping in other areas which might be more effective.
Oh, well, ultimately it's all in the implementation.
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well, makers of consumer devices generally care more about projecting a 'sense' of security to the public rather than providing actual security. that's why security through obscurity is still widely used in consumer devices. outside of computer geek circles, the general public has no concept of security awareness. it's hard for a layperson to understand why RFIDs are a bad idea for secure applications, or why it's unwise to use a single password for everything, or why encryption is so important when using a
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I'm left to wonder how an innocent device can distinguish between another innocent device 3cm away and a malicious device 1m away with a correspondingly more powerful signal.
Oh, that's easy: all malicious devices will be required to set the 'evil' bit in all data transfer headers.
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But as the trained consumers we are, we'll expect an automatic transfer option and demand it until we get it, for "convenience" or whatever. Someone will implement it, some idiot developer will make it the default option, and some user who hasn't RTFM will walk around with AutoJet(tm) enabled by default, and eventually some hacker with
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i dunno. i think a lot of consumers would be able to see the idiocy in having the TransferJet feature automatically kick on just through a device's proximity.
you'll have family members constantly finding each other's text messages, address book, photos, and what not randomly showing up on one another's phones and portable devices just because they sat them down next to each other on the kitchen counter or on a table. and you'll have people finding random garbage on their phones because they sat down next to
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i dunno. i think a lot of consumers would be able to see the idiocy in having the TransferJet feature automatically kick on just through a device's proximity.
you'll have family members constantly finding each other's text messages, address book, photos, and what not randomly showing up [...]
While I agree that it isn't likely that the technology would perform transfers completely automatically, it might well be designed so that you only need initiate the transfer from one of the devices. Seeing as you have to choose the content to transfer, it seems most likely that sending data will be a manual process but receiving it might well be automatic. Better than the other way around, of course, but still worrying.
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i dunno. i think a lot of consumers would be able to see the idiocy in having the TransferJet feature automatically kick on just through a device's proximity.
I dunno about that. These are the same consumers that made flashing sneakers popular... Recognizing idiocy doesn't seem to be their strongest point.
Just like IRdA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just like IRdA? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Just like IRdA? (Score:4, Insightful)
IRdA is slow as hell.
This will be much faster, and secure, assuming they can find a way for radio waves to travel 3 cm and then stop themselves.
Of course, a towel provides effective IRdA security.
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This will be much faster, and secure, assuming they can find a way for radio waves to travel 3 cm and then stop themselves.
In practicality, it's this handy little thing called the "inverse square law."
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My 22db gain yagi says "phffft" to the inverse square law!
Actually, if the protocol were fast enough, you could use the time delay of propagation to make performance degrade really rapidly after a certain distance, in much the same way ethernet falls apart once you exceed a certain distance. Radio waves travel take all of 1/10 of a nanosecond to go 3 cm. That's an eternity by some design standards.
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Wouldn't that only matter for two-way communication? Performance could degrade rapidly because of either collisions due to insufficient carrier-sense times or lengthy SYN/ACKish round trips, I suppose, but that would hamper legitimate communication attempts. If you're just eavesdropping those concerns vanish, since the speedy responses are handled by the appropriately positioned intended recipient of the signal.
Love your sig btw.
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Guess you weren't too serious about this, but this is the reason why Free Space Optics [wikipedia.org] were used by military before strong encryption got fancy. Since it doesn't spread like radio and it is quite portable compared to wires it was used by the German army during WWII for voice communication to nearby stations at the Atlantic Wall. Lasers weren't available back then so I have doubts regarding reliability and range, but since it was in use it must have provi
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Of course, a towel provides effective IRdA security.
Never forget your towel!
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a way for radio waves to travel 3 cm and then stop themselves.
You mean something like exploiting near field effects [wikipedia.org]?
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It does, but not at 375Mbps.
Missing from list (Score:3, Insightful)
Touch ME! (Score:1)
Reminds me of this... http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=116 [vgcats.com]
How much battery life will this suck? (Score:2)
How much battery life will this suck?
So to summarize the entire article: (Score:2)
Sounds like technology I've already seen on... some... websites...
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Firm but Gentle
Pickpockets in a crowd (Score:3, Funny)
Security? Isn't that a synonym for "DRM?" (Score:2)
Well, of course. I was thinking of the other security possibilities, such as touching someone's portable and scoring their data files or giving them some electronic "social disease."
That last may be a design requirement, you know. Think of updating DRM security profiles on contact. That would be a good thing, right?
Sir Howard... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2008/07/22/sony-and-company-introduce-transferjet/
"I thought Sir Howard was supposed to put an end to this type of thing. Apparently not, as Sony is back with another proprietary technology. Making it worse, they are offering up a wireless technology to transfer video and image wirelessly, a market where there are seemingly PLENTY of standardized technologies to do just this. Sure, theyâ(TM)ve pushed a consortium around TransferJet [PR], at least giving this effort the appearance of an industry-wide effort, but in the end this looks and feels like classic Sony pushing an internally developed technology as a solution where there already is one."
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Truth be told, at least Sony is trying to standardize something. Look at it this way: you have company X that develops a technology Y in their products Z to make them more useful to the consumer. They get the support of similar market players in their sector and agree to normalize the technology for those involved.
The problem lies in that they are using a saturated medium (2.4GHz radio) as a bedrock for their technology. I think this is both a blessing and a curse. In one aspect, almost all handhelds have a
I thought WiMedia won (Score:3, Interesting)
Off With The Editor's Head ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Different proximities (Score:2)
I will point out that there most definitely is such a thing as "open proximity" even if the canonical /.er has never encountered the possibility.
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after a quick search, open proximity appears to have something to do with switches, and doesn't seem to conflict in any way with "close proximity" being redundant
Airplane joke (Score:2)
It appears I was too subtle.
Well, that or you fit the /. stereotype too well.
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Approximately.
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... is the cry every time I see the phrase "close proximity". Is there any other kind of proximity?
not-so-close proximity
Over/Under pool, taking bets now: (Score:2)
How long until sony pulls out and announces a proprietary competing technology available to be liscenced?
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Answer: about as fast as regular pathogens would.
You're really only adding a 3cm radius of influence on the entities. I predict it would still be at logarithmic growth in any case. The key factor is transfer rate. If the ratio between transfer rate to pathogen size is high, then you can treat it as a game of tag. If the ratio is low, then time of visit will play into the modeling.
Another attempt to sell more dongles (Score:2, Insightful)
This is really what the technology is about. You'll still need to buy another round of cables to connect your mobile devices to your PC. At a predicted cost of $40-50, this is exactly like the cellphone charger dilemma. This is what it's about.
What about... (Score:1)
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I suspect that Transferjet has less to do with bluetooth and more to do with sony just being sony, as usual.
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Bluetooth 3.0
The next version of Bluetooth after v2.1, code-named Seattle (the version number of which is TBD) has many of the same features, but is most notable for plans to adopt ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology. This will allow Bluetooth use over UWB radio, enabling very fast data transfers of up to 480 Mbit/s, while building
its' usage? (Score:2)
Surprised no grammar nazis picked this one up yet. Its' isn't a valid construction in English at all. Had it been it's, I'm sure that its tags would already include its. Is everyone afraid that they've missed a rule?
Yes, I know what posting this makes me, and I'm fine with that.
So... (Score:2)
Bluetooth?
Inductive charging (Score:1)
NFC & Bluetooth? (Score:1)