Novatel might be on to something with its MiFi device. It’s basically a rechargeable, portable wireless router that ingests mobile data signals and spits them back out as standard Wi-Fi. The company is calling the technology an “Intelligent Mobile Hotspot,” in case you were longing for some industry jargon.
The idea certainly isn’t new, but this version may very well be the most portable. Initial devices will be good for four hours of active usage or 40 hours of standby time and they’ll be available in the first half of next year, although specific carriers and prices haven’t been mentioned. Also, nobody seems to want to talk about the 5GB data limit imposed by all the major US wireless companies. Seems that if you shared a data connection between enough users, you’d blow through that limit pretty quickly.
The majority (51 percent) of wireless access points in New York City are completely insecure, either using no security whatsoever or relying on WEP, which is all but useless. That number excludes publicly accessible hotspots you’d find at a café or park, meaning that a majority of those blue little routers sitting in the corner of every New York City apartment can be broken into with little to no effort. The above video shows how easily it is to crack WEP.
Note that WPA can also be cracked, but that requires a little more effort (though just barely—this stuff moves fast, as you can imagine.)
Those are some of the findings of the most recent Wireless Security Survey, which is conducted by RSA. Other tidbits of information—that London has the most wireless access points of any city on Earth (12,276 of them, which is some 3,000 more than New York has); Paris has seen 543 percent jump in the number of wireless access points—pepper the report but aren’t nearly as interesting.
Again, I feel like I say this every other day, but you really ought to secure your Wi-Fi router, especially if you live in a densely populated area, like, say, an apartment building. That means WPA or greater, because all it takes is one kid with a few minutes of free time and the will to do some damage to get you into hot water.
I’ve just attended the keynote address given by Dr. Martin Cooper. Never heard of him? You know him indirectly, as he’s the inventor of something most everyone uses every day: the mobile phone.
At the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, Cooper presented an interesting look at the current state of the wireless industry, identifying a handful of problems and how he thinks they could be fixed.
We’ll soon have another wireless provider to be annoyed with. Cox Communications—yes, the cable company—plans to enter the wireless game next year piggybacking on on Sprint’s network; it will launch its own 3G network, sans Sprint, before the end of 2009. (It’s also moving toward its own 4G, using LTE, network, but that’s a further out.)
Cox is moving into this arena in order to compete with the likes of AT&T and Verizon, two companies that have diversified their operations: AT&T with U-verse and Verzion with FiOS.
And now I ask, how does Cox rate? We’ve all heard the Comcast horror stories, and I’ve only used Cablevision and Time Warner, so I’ve not idea how Cox operates.
57,000 Rage Wireless Guitars were sold to date and now the Chinese-made Guitar Hero axe is being recalled. Allegedly, if an user installs the AA batteries incorrectly, a circuit board malfunctions causing acid to leak and the world to implode. Owners are asked to return the dangerous guitars to the original place of purchase for a full refund. Maybe you can apply $40 to $60 refund to Logitech’s Premiere Wireless Controller, but just be careful with this one too; the rosewood fingerboard might give you a sliver.
The Solo Tabletop RF-Armor from Revolabs is a high-end wireless microphone system using 1.92 to 1.93 GHz for its radio transmissions, with enhanced shielding which allows it “to operate cleanly even when in direct contact with all wireless electronic devices known to cause unwanted audio interference, such as GSM mobile phones, smart phones, etc.” The base station connects to your PC by a USB cable, and no drivers are needed: it just shows up as a USB audio device ready to go!
At first glance, you might mistake this doodad on the left for an ordinary, run-of-the-mill thumbdrive. Don’t be fooled! It’s a 3G modem from AT&T called the USBConnect Quicksilver.
If you’re a weakling, you’ll love this thing because it weighs less than an ounce. Everyone, and I mean everyone, can lift one ounce, so less than one once should be a cakewalk.
According to SlashPhone the Quicksilver is the first device of its kind to use the new Icera Livanto chipset, which accounts for its pocketability. The modem handles GSM/GPRS/EDGE/3G data.
The price with a two-year contract is $100 plus there’s a $100 mail-in rebate available, which makes this little guy a wheel of a deal. Just don’t lose it, eh?
Tired of the tyranny of headphone wires when listening to “Headphone Silence” on your iPod 200 times in a row? Who isn’t! Lucky for you there’s Onkyo’s MHP-UW2, a pair of unfortunately named wireless headphones that operate on the 2.4GHz frequency. You have to plug a receiver into the bottom of your iPod in order for it to work, but once that’s out of the way you’re golden.
Rather than trust the machine translation, we’ll merely mention that it’s due for release November 14 (in Japan at least; USA?) for around ¥20,000, which, right now, is about $197.
The problem with radio waves is that they just can’t seem to pass through things. That’s why I maintain a direct line of sight to my wireless router at all times — even when I’m not using it! And with this range extender for my Airport Express, now I can make my router higher up and more visible in the room — because that’s why I bought a wireless networking solution: to make my cabling and backend electronics more prominent!
Do you think wireless devices need to be high up in the air in order to transmit effectively over distances of 10 or 20 feet? Do you believe dinosaurs walked the young Earth with mankind? Then have I got a product for you, Sarah Palin!
[via BBG and UberGizmo]
NEC Electronics today announced in Japan [JP] they managed to develop a technology which could lead to chips used for wireless applications that are 10% smaller than existing products.
NEC is planning to use the new chips for indoor wireless communication under gigahertz-band frequencies and miliwave and UWB protocols. The company coats their chips with a ferrite layer that boosts the magnetic field, which coils placed on the chips generate to attenuate electromagnetic noise. As a result, coils can be cut down in size, which leads to smaller chips.
Nissan’s proprietary “Intelligent Key” technology will soon be built into a mobile phone, which is produced by Sharp and, at this point, unfortunately Japan-only. The Japanese car company’s key system is already used in over 950,000 vehicles but now, drivers can wirelessly enter, exit and start their Nissans with the (yet to be named) Sharp phone.
Reportedly, the device is a world first and will be sold on the Japanese market by Nippon’s biggest cell phone carrier, NTT Docomo. The phone will be exhibited at CEATEC Japan 2008, a tech exhibition that starts September 30 near Tokyo.
The companies involved in the joint development said they aim at commercializing the key system in fiscal 2009. No word on pricing yet, though, and the picture above just shows an early mockup.
I didn’t have a good time with the last wireless keyboard/mouse combo I had, but I’m ready to try again. This keyboard has the most dumb/smart feature of all time, a Ctrl-Alt-Del key. That’s awesome. Yes, there are jokes to be made, but I use the task manager for more than killing crashed programs. Anyway, the keyboard also has a “rotary button,” commonly referred to as a knob, and about five billion function keys (I count at least 27 in reality). They appear to have made the same mistake as Microsoft did, in not separating the F-keys into distinguishable groups. Trouble brewing! At least it comes with a cool-looking mouse.
The Vector mouse features a sort of right-handed curve in its design, which I trust is reasonably comfortable. I question the wisdom of having two tiny, indistinguishable buttons right next to each other there, but maybe it’ll work out. Anyway, if you don’t like it, you can always replace it with their more generic Wireless Optical Mobile mouse, a smaller, more traditional affair. Price is $80 for the set, no word on the Mobile; I’d guess around 40 smackers.
Believe it or not, the image above is an UWB antenna and not some Stargate universe artifact. Taeyoung Yang, a Virginia Tech Ph.D. student, devised the idea of creating a ultra-wideband antenna as small as theoretically possible and this is it. The antenna boosts a 95% efficiency rating and the world’s smallest with a 10:1 bandwidth.
…OK. Not the greatest sounding speaker of course, but you can use it outside. Or rather, you can keep it outside. It’s being marketed as a Bluetooth sports speaker, and with a compact water resistant form factor, I won’t argue. Besides look at it, all aerodynamic and shiny. I bet this thing can bike faster than I can.
Comes is two versions, $179 for Cy-fi for Bluetooth and $199 for Cy-fi for iPod. Both should be available October 1st. We first bought this to you, here. A couplea more photos after the jump, including the iPod version. Read More
Tokyo-based Taiyo Corp. [JP] is selling a new wireless toy helicopter for indoor use that can be used even in very small rooms. The beginner-friendly, so-called Micro Master HG3, features special sensors that prevent the helicopter from crashing into ceilings by descending automatically right before it would happen.
Taiyo claims its the first company in the industry offering such a helicopter. They use electrical waves to determine the distance from room ceilings (the helicopter loses altitude when it’s less than 50cm away). Owners can play with the toy for about 5 minutes with one charge, which takes 30-60 minutes.
The Micro Master HG3 is Japan-only at this point and has an MSRP of $92.
The future is near! Soon the days of wireless, LCD technology will be gone and the era of wireless organic EL TV will be here. Sony is showing off the prototype at the companies dealer convention along with other non-wireless, organic EL TVs. The 3mm thick TV is simply a tech demo of what’s to come with Sony withholding pertinent information, such as battery life and range. We do that speakers are on top and there is a broadcasting tuner box but, of course, there isn’t any mention of price or availability; maybe CES 2009.
Once again, friends, into the breach. JBL has just released some speakers, a wireless subwoofer kit, and a wireless speaker kit that will have you singing in the aisles of your local Best Buy when they’re finally launched.
The WEM-1 is a wireless speaker kit for $359 and is available in September. The subwoofers, ES250PW and ES150PW cost $729 and $599 respectively include a little transmitter for sending your subwoofing to other rooms. Finally, the LS series speakers range from $999 to $1,999 each and include bookshelf, floorstanding, and center channel models. Read More
The USB to VGA Adapter Kit from CablesToGo uses Ultra-Wide Band technology to transmit VGA video over wirelessly over USB to a VGA out port to a television. You can connect a PC to one end and then transmit the 720p video to a television up to 30 feet away.
No pricing, it seems, but makes a nice addition to the wireless USB to VGA Pantheon currently populated by IOGEAR. Read More
Raise your hand if you like paying $10 or so for 24 hours of airport Internet access that you’re only going to use for 15 minutes.
While I certainly wouldn’t suggest that you use this trick for endless, free web surfing on a for-pay wireless network, maybe your conscience would allow you to just quickly jump on to grab your e-mail or some music for your MP3 player before you board.
Debuggable Ltd has the full story, but the basic gist is that when you open up your web browser in most airports that charge for wireless access, you’re re-routed to the service’s sign-up and payment page. The trick is to enter the web address you’d like to visit and add “?.jpg” to the end of the URL.
So you would go to http://www.crunchgear.com/?.jpg for instance. Apparently these for-pay networks don’t block image files (yet), so you’re able to slip through the cracks this way. The guy who discovered this even used a Greasemonkey script for Firefox to automatically append “?.jpg” to every URL he visited. Clever, no?
Do you know how big of an area 10,000 square feet is? Big. Like almost two football fields big. Bigger than my apartment, for sure. So if I got this new Pro-WAV 100 from Luxul Wireless I could feed my entire city block WiFi signals. Not that I would want to mind you. But a high performance WiFi system certainly does have its uses. The company has their signal technologies installed in nationwide truck stop chains, hospitals and hotels. Read More
I’ve just attended the keynote address given by 
At first glance, you might mistake this doodad on the left for an ordinary, run-of-the-mill thumbdrive. Don’t be fooled! It’s a 3G modem from AT&T called 
Raise your hand if you like paying $10 or so for 24 hours of airport Internet access that you’re only going to use for 15 minutes.
