Wi-Fi Direct Gets Real With Product Certification 78
CWmike writes "Wi-Fi Direct officially became a concrete technology today, with several new laptop components certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. That threshold was reached before most people even understand what Wi-Fi Direct is, reports Matt Hamblen. Wi-Fi Direct is a new technology designed to allow peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connections between devices like smartphones and cameras without a traditional Wi-Fi network or the need for Wi-Fi access points. This means that a camera with Wi-Fi Direct installed could communicate via Wi-Fi to a digital picture frame or printer, uploading picture data over the same range of existing Wi-Fi, about 200 yards at speeds of up to 250Mbit/sec, said Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa. 'Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds but had no cellular or Wi-Fi hot spot. They still could play with Wi-Fi Direct,' he said."
Bluetooth is gone eh? (Score:1)
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Have you not seen all the bluetooth mice and headsets for computers that are available now..?
bluetooth still has it's applications... low power usage mainly.
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Exactly.
I've read several articles on WiFi Direct but have yet to see a single one address power requirements, let alone power requirements compared to Bluetooth. Yet everyone seems to angle the two technologies as competitors.
Almost all of the areas where Bluetooth has wide penetration is exactly because of its power advantages and because its performance is fast enough. If battery like is reduced 50% but you can transfer 1000% faster, does anyone really care? I know I don't. After all, when I need faster
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They both run at 2.4 Ghz if I am reading the summary correctly. This would mean to get the 200 yd range, more power is being used in the transmitter, which means less battery life. This to me is a no starter, just use bluetooth, it is what it is meant to be used for.
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This would mean to get the 200 yd range
Bluetooth can't even work at those ranges. Just the same, there isn't a reason you can't do adaptive amplification based on signal strength and/or error rate. Which means, technically, they could ran at much lower power levels for much closer ranges. As such, it would be nice to see a graph comparing power, distance, and throughput for the two technologies.
Regardless, I suspect you're right - Bluetooth is likely still king.
Re:Bluetooth is gone eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Bluetooth 3.0 uses WiFi as the underlying carrier technology.
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Sniffing of wireless keyboards using WiFi is gonna be even easier than before.
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Only when high speed data is needed, like for file transfers, and only for the radio layer. The protocol is still very much bluetooth.
And bluetooth 4.0 introduced a low power spec, that should allow a compatible device to function for quite some time from a coin style battery (or perhaps even smaller).
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Actually, Bluetooth 3.0 uses IEEE802.11, not Wi-Fi, as the underlying carrier technology. Wi-Fi is a superset of 802.11 features. Wi-Fi brings broad interoperability, higher level functionality and mandated conformance to established standards. BT 3.0 uses 802.11 as an Alternate MAC/PHY (AMP) layer, has a fixed signaling rate of 24Mbps, and does the "networking" using the BT radio and BT protocols, not Wi-Fi. It is not necessary for a 802.11 radio that is set up to run in BT3.0 mode to be compatible with a
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Well, no. It uses 3GPP 802.11, not Wi-Fi. And, it only uses that for the physical layers.
Bluetooth wants to be come only the overlaying protocol without caring about the RF layers.
Additionally, Bluetooth tends to have much better power management than Wi-Fi does. Especially when you are talking about BT low energy and advanced power control features.
I don't see Wi-Fi kicking out BT.
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Bluetooth passes network timing natively. (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder how long it will actually take to phase out bluetooth. I mean, that tech has been around forever and never really caught on outside of phones.
Bluetooth passes the 8KHz network timing natively, by timing its frame rate to the network clock and having built-in provisions for picking a good clocking master. This is very handy for cellphone peripherals because it makes them cheap: The phone provides an accurate and (if appropriate) network-synchronized clock to the the A/D converters in microphones,
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Small example, but how about Wii controllers?
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How is this different than an ad-hoc wireless LAN? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been able to have two Wifi laptops communicate in an ad-hoc network forever, so how is this really different?
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No, really, it may have technical differences, but it all boils down to fucktards colonizing the industry that should be for smart people.
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I second that motion. How is this new and different.
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Because you didn't have to pay for the privilege of using ad-hoc
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You didn't even read the summary did you?
Peer-to-peer for "dumb" devices, like of a high power, long range Bluetooth.
Re:How is this different than an ad-hoc wireless L (Score:5, Insightful)
then goes on to give an example of 2 people playing a game, which has been done on the psp and the DS for getting close to a decade
its just brand naming ad-hoc and does not show or explain how it is different
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I've been able to have two Wifi laptops communicate in an ad-hoc network forever, so how is this really different?
Exactly. When I saw "Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds" I thought of Wi-Fi on the Nintendo DS, which in effect turns player 1's machine into an access point.
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Over the weekend I was configuring my thermostat and sprinkler system for Fall, and wishing I could cheaply and easily use a web browser interface instead of the tiny, arcane LCD screens currently used to do this. These interfaces only have a few buttons and it's pretty hard for me to imagine configuring ad-hoc wifi on them. I think the problems solve
Re:How is this different than an ad-hoc wireless L (Score:4, Informative)
According to Wikipedia, Wi-Fi Direct is ad-hoc mode Wi-Fi device with a built-in Wi-Fi Protected Access setup daemon, optional access point software (e.g., routing to other networks) and an as-yet undefined service discovery mechanism (e.g., UPnP, Bonjour). Basically, they are writing a standard which ties together several existing standards and best practices. This sort of meta-standard is quite common.
One example they give is a picture frame, which offers only the required ad-hoc mode Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Protected Access daemon, and a simple service for file upload. The user would connect to it, upload pictures, and then disconnect. Nothing else would be offered by the frame, but the user would not need to do any manual setup or buy any additional devices.
A more complicated example is a cell phone which offers tethering. In addition to the required ad-hoc mode Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Protected Access daemon, has full blown bridging/routing and service discovery daemons built-in. The user would expect to treat this device more like an infrastructure mode network in a single package; perhaps some setup would be required on the Wi-Fi Direct device, but virtually no additional setup would be required on each connected device.
So basically they are just making a standard, the implementation of which requires doing all of the things we have done manually for our own networks. This is just one step further in simplifying network setup, but not any kind of new revolution.
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I hate to reply to my own posts, but I just thought of an additional comment to add.
In the example of the picture frame, likely all of the extra Wi-Fi Direct magic will be baked into the firmware.
On the other hand, for devices like laptops, I doubt that they would put this amount of software into firmware. It is likely that the extra components that turn plain Wi-Fi into Wi-Fi Direct will be entirely software that is delivered by a package of drivers and helper programs that are all provided by the OS or v
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I can see it now: wardriving for picture frames and uploading goatse to each one.
I, for one, welcome our new WiFi Direct overlords.
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Ad-hoc/IBSS was never widely adopted by consumers, and is a very connection-centric technology. You create ad-hoc profiles on each participating machine, activate the network, and that's it. Security and services are up to the user- and generally the ability to create ad-hoc networks is relegated to the "advanced" section of most WiFi UIs. WiFi Direct uses WPS so average-Joe users can create and join secure "ad-hoc" networks without really knowing anything about the underlying technologies. It also provides
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Rob Enderle (Score:1, Insightful)
The article quotes Enderle. It's validity as journalism just got -3 mod points. As Enderle only makes stupid and pointless commentary about wi-fi tethering, it avoids the full -5 mod pomt deduction it could have suffered if the main point of the article was based on something he said.
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Thanks for the extra warning! I always avoid the *world.com sites like the plague, but Rob is above and beyond a complete numskull in all things tech and probably beyond. Still, good going for him to get such a flashy, almost tech job without any knowledge of the subject matter whatsoever. Cheers!
So.. (Score:3, Insightful)
All of the same benefits of Bluetooth, plus the WiFi congestion and interference headaches we already enjoy just to get Internet access???
Where do I sign up???
*rant off*
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Exactly.
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Considering that wifi can use both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz ISM bands, how do you figure there will be more interference issues with wifi than BT (That only use 2.4GHz as of right now)
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Bluetooth use frequency hopping, not fixed channels.
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"Bluetooth just doesn't work."
Tell that to my headphones, headset, mouse, and laser keyboard, all of which work without ANY issue.
And then my phone can sync up using bluetooth as well, flawlessly.
Are you just technically inept?
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"Bluetooth is just a mess, it didn't work correctly with Windows XP at the time"
Again, tell that to my peripherals, now including a Bluetooth printer. That computer runs XP, because Vista had a GARBAGE implementation. I don't have bluetooth on this 7 laptop so I can't speak for it, but what you state for XP has not been true for the easy 15 or so peripherals I've used.
Blame Canonical and Apple for not following the Bluetooth standard properly.
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Blame Canonical and Apple for not following the Bluetooth standard properly.
Now you get my point, they are not able to implement the standard properly because the standard is so complex. That's the root of the problem and that's why wifi is better.
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Oh, look, the person I was talking with AGREES with me, and yet I get modded as flamebait.
Linux mods have a vendetta, I see, without any rational defense. That's the *ONLY* reason I'm being downmodded without a response. Proven fact given how anti-social the Linux community is in reality.
This is why Linux will never see the day of the desktop, let alone ever get out of the server market.
You assholes are assholes.
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zomg they invented bluetooth (Score:2, Funny)
So it's like this? (Score:2)
'Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds but had no cellular or Wi-Fi hot spot. They still could play with Wi-Fi Direct,' he said."
Pfft, old news.
http://guidesarchive.ign.com/guides/12865/images/linkcable_top.jpg
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just a brand name for ad-hoc networking, then?
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This is just a brand name for ad-hoc networking, then?
Yeah, seriously. I mean, look at this quote:
"Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds but had no cellular or Wi-Fi hot spot. They still could play with Wi-Fi Direct"
Nintendo DS and Sony PSP have had this exact capability for several years now. Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know... But this example use case isn't exactly mind-blowing.
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it's like ad-hoc, but wifi direct goes to 11
It already does (Score:3, Funny)
And it goes to 13 in Japan.
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Are the DS and PSP open standards for generalized communication?
Maybe they screwed up by not becoming open standards for generalized communication.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know..
So you could take a minute to post the fact you are uninformed to slashdot, or you could have spent that same minute informing yourself...
From the FAQ linked in the article...
Is this the same as Ad Hoc mode?
No. Ad Hoc, or IBSS, mode is a legacy protocol for Wi-Fi devices, and Wi-Fi Direct is a new innovation. Wi-Fi Direct brings important security features, ease of setup, and higher performance that is not currently available in Ad Hoc mode. With Wi-Fi Direct, a device can maintain a simultaneous connection to an infrastructure network – this isn’t possible with Ad Hoc.
Wi-Fi Direct vs. Ad-Hoc (Score:2)
Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know..
So you could take a minute to post the fact you are uninformed to slashdot, or you could have spent that same minute informing yourself...
Well, yes, but my point still stands: that "gaming on a train" thing is a terrible example of what Wi-Fi Direct has to offer. Playing a game wirelessly between two or more devices? We've got that already. That feature has been available at retail in mainstream gaming devices for at least six years. And that's what they chose as an example of why Wi-Fi Direct is a new and exciting feature? Pathetic.
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It is easy enough for one card to be connected to both an infrastructure and ad-hoc network. There are however a few minor limitations (such as using the same channel for both). However, many OS's don't have a sufficent API for drivers to allow this, and even when the API is there, not all drivers implement enough to permit this. Indeed sometimes the drivers could not offer such features, because the defined driverchip path is lacking.
Just like pretty much all wifi chips have the hardware to support running
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Is this the same as Ad Hoc mode?
"No." (actually, it's damn close, so close that anyone who knows both will assume they are the same.
"Ad Hoc, or IBSS, mode is a legacy protocol for Wi-Fi devices, and Wi-Fi Direct is a new innovation." (Adhoc is old, this is new! That's the difference! Imbecile!)
"Wi-Fi Direct brings important security features, ease of setup, and higher performance that is not currently available in Ad Hoc mode." (we took adhoc mode, formalised the out-of-spec "adhoc can use more than 11MBp
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Does it work if one person has a Nintendo DS and the other has a Sony PSP? Will the new standard work between different types of gaming device? Obviously you both need to be playing the same game.
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Doesn't OLPC XO-1 use 802.11s for ad-hoc/mesh networking [wikipedia.org]?
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Self Organizing Wireless Mesh Network (Score:1)
Software-only Upgrade? (Score:2)
Can existing Wi-Fi devices, like notebook PCs, just upgrade software (downloaded from the Internet) to get the Wi-Fi Direct function? Or does it require new hardware?
"Hey You" for Phones? (Score:2)
Could this be the tech for sending messages to nearby phones without knowing in advance their specific network address (eg. phone# or IP#)? Phones could accept connections over Wi-Fi Direct from other nearby phones, locate them physically and show the message recipient just where the message is coming from. It would let us use our phones to say "hey, you!" or "psst" to people without everyone around knowing we did. People could shut off the messaging or screen it, or just see every message cast at them. But
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Zigbee lets devices locate themselves by radio triangulation. Can't Wi-Fi do the same for other devices in the network?