Wi-Fi Article Round-Up: CES Edition

A recap of interesting Wi-Fi and IT industry articles from around the interwebs. For those living in isolation, CES is this week, so much of the news will relate to the show.

Note - I will not be covering CES news surrounding tablets or smartphones. Wi-Fi within those devices are well understood and not really new.

Wi-Fi Articles:


Wireless display technologies will fight to enter the market in 2012 and compete with Apple AirPlay. I don't think they'll gain much traction in 2012, but Marvell and the Wi-Fi Alliance have a better long-term shot than Intel WiDi, as I wrote about earlier this week.

Marvell to Showcase Wi-Fi Display Technology Implemented Across Avastar Family of Wireless Products: "The Wi-Fi Display specification is the basis for an exciting new Wi-Fi Alliance certification program, scheduled for launch in mid-2012. Devices certified under this program can provide a rich audio/video experience between Wi-Fi devices anywhere, at any time, without cables or a connection to an existing Wi-Fi network--all with the multi-vendor interoperability expected from Wi-Fi CERTIFIED."

This standards-based solution has already been adopted by Qualcomm Atheros as well (press release), proving just how important the Wi-Fi Alliance and interoperable standards are in the Wi-Fi industry (hint - we live by interoperability!)

New Wi-Fi Alliance growth predictions:

Wi-Fi Alliance's Wireless Predictions and Projects for 2012: "Recent research data shows that shipment of wi-fi devices is expected to double by 2015. Growth in home wireless networking devices—including TVs, media players and gaming consoles is anticipated to reach 35 percent from 2011 to 2016. Other predictions:
- Wi-Fi is expected to grow 109 percent between 2011-2016 in automotive applications such as infotainment systems, navigation, and traffic monitoring.
- Wi-Fi is expected to grow 39 percent between 2011-2016 in health, fitness, and medical applications.
- Wi-Fi is expected to grow 25 percent between 2011-2016 in smart meters and automation products."

White space Wi-Fi could get faster if Microsoft has anything to say. They have proposed Wi-Fi over Narrow Channels (Wi-Fi NC), which essentially bonds non-contiguous narrowband frequencies into a single Wi-Fi channel that increases available spectrum and therefore bandwidth for white space Wi-Fi.

WiFi-NC : WiFi Over Narrow Channels - Microsoft Research: "We propose WiFi-NC, a novel PHY-MAC design that allows radios to use WiFi over multiple narrow channels simultaneously. To enable WiFi-NC, we have developed the compound radio, a single wideband radio that exposes the abstraction of multiple narrow channel radios, each with independent transmission, reception and carrier sensing capabilities."

Hotspot 2.0 will a recurring theme throughout 2012 (and 2013 for that matter). The ability to provide Wi-Fi hotspot security, ease of use, service and provider transparency, and allow carrier data offload, while doing so with a viable business model for telecom carriers, independent hotspot operators, as well as authentication providers (which, BTW, is not limited to carriers), will be a major milestone for the Wi-Fi industry. Marcus breaks most of this down in his blog post on the subject!

Hotspot 2.0 and the Next Generation Hotspot: "Hotspot 2.0 and the Next Generation Hotspot initiatives are possibly the most exciting areas of wireless progress occurring in 2012. For starters, these developments have a worldwide scope of influence. The technologies that come to market as a result of these programs will directly affect a large portion of the world’s population. If brought to market with extensibility, they could revolutionize the hotspot ease-of-use and security landscapes. These programs deserve the spotlight."

While you're at it, be sure to sign up to learn about Hotspot 2.0 at the upcoming Wi-Fi Mobility Symposium and Wireless Field Day 2 events being held Jan. 25-27th.

Want details of the recent WPS vulnerability affecting Wi-Fi routers? Look no further than the No Strings Attached Show podcast - Episode 02 - Wi-Fi Protected Setup, Battered or Broken?

How about making Eye-Fi, the SD cards that connects to Wi-Fi for automatic picture upload, into an industry standard? Enter the SD Association and the Wireless LAN SD standard!

Wireless LAN SD standard aims to give every SD card that Eye-Fi flair: "The Wireless LAN SD standard announced today is the SD Association's first wireless SD memory card standard combining storage and wireless capabilities. Consumers will be able to transfer pictures, videos and other content wirelessly from most existing digital cameras and digital video cameras to web-based cloud services and between SD devices over home networks."

We've also seen manufacturers embedding Wi-Fi capabilities directly into cameras (Samsung, Kodak), and camcorders too (JVC, Gobandit Live). Watch out Eye-Fi, time to shift into new territory to keep the sales flowing! Also, check out this Toshiba FlashAir wireless LAN SD hands-on video!

Toshiba FlashAir Wireless LAN SD Card

Or how about embedding an Android phone into a true point-and-shoot camera, with this interesting twist on the merger of the two capabilities in the Polaroid SC1630.

Polaroid's Frankenstein Camera / Android Phone, the SC1630

Okay, I will throw one smartphone news item at you... how about more and more phones supporting dual-band Wi-Fi. There have been others prior, I'd just like to highlight the growing trend. 5GHz phones - "Make it so!"

Notice support for 5GHz standards (11a/n) with a 1x1:1 configuration
capable of up to 150Mbps if it support 40Mhz wide channels (not verified)

Indoor location services - Google is trumpeting their indoor location and navigation technology in Google Maps 6.0. I first heard of this being deployed in my neck of the woods, at the Mall of America, and now it's at CES.

Google Maps indoor navigation: yeah, it works at CES: "Google Maps 6.0 brought a promise of indoor navigation back in November of last year, but outside of a few dozen airports, transit hubs and retail outlets, we had no idea where it was or wasn't implemented. Turns out, Google (smartly) mapped out lots of Las Vegas before the annual Consumer Electronics Show"

I'm concerned with the hype surrounding this service as over-zealous media analysts predict this will revolutionize indoor navigation and appear at most retail stores. Sure, one-off venues likes malls make sense, but an inordinate amount of time goes into mapping the venue. Don't expect large retail chains to be spending the labor and money to map each and every one of their thousands of stores anytime soon! Indoor location just ain't THAT easy :)

Home automation solutions continue to keep plugging away, hoping to find a place in consumer's hearts. Right now most of them are standalone solutions, lacking whole-home automation at an affordable price for the masses.

Belkin announces WeMo home automation system; controls electrical outlets with your smartphone, motion: "WeMo works with a home's existing electrical system and requires only a Wi-Fi® network and free smartphone app to set up and control. Simply plug the WeMo Home Control Switch into any electrical outlet and then plug in any device, such as a lamp, into the WeMo Home Control Switch. Through the free smartphone app, the item then can be turned on or off remotely or scheduled to turn on and off at set times." 

Also check out the Motorola Connected Home Gateway (tour and video).

Belkin WeMo Electrical Outlets

Wi-Fi video surveillance and baby cameras are also quite popular (see Dropcam, Samsung). Smart appliances are also back at CES this year, same as last year (see LG, Samsung). While we're at it, let's make it Siri voice-activated too! Oh, and don't forget this weird Withings Wi-Fi connected baby scale!

Samsung SmartHome Wi-Fi Washer, Dryer, and Mobile Application 

IT Industry Articles:


NFC built into MicroSD cards could bring faster consumer adoption, for uses including information retrieval (such as Google Places or Sony SmartTags), information exchange, and contactless payment (mobile wallets).

Moneto NFC microSD to bring contactless features to any Android phone: "DeviceFidelity and Spring Card Systems have teamed up on a NFC-capable microSD card that will hopefully forgo the need of buying specific mobile handsets for the privilege of contactless payments. "

Also check out this Cirque Glidepoint NFC-enabled laptop trackpad. I'm not sure how this would be of practical use, but it's interesting, that's for sure.

NFC MicroSD Card

Home networking could be made easier with higher-speed powerline networks. I think consumers will still prefer Wi-Fi, but powerline could be an attractive option for older homes with thick construction material that hinders RF propagation. Given powerline's checkered performance history and problems with power strips, filters, and surge protectors, I think it still faces challenges with consumer adoption.

HomePlug Alliance AV2 specification promises gigabit class networking over electrical wires: "With MIMO functionality (multiple-input and multiple-output) at its core, the new specification features gigabit class speeds and comes from a decade of field tests. What's more, the new standard promises to bring greater in-home coverage beyond WiFi capabilities while maintaining compatibility with existing HomePlug AV / IEEE 1901 products."

Comic for the Week:

Don't Kitchen Sink Me, Dude!

Cheers (and happy reading)!
Andrew

Wireless Display Technologies Challenge Apple AirPlay

At CES this year two separate announcements are being made that could prove 2012 to be the year of wireless display technologies. Solutions are being promoted by Intel and Marvell, with the latter in partnership with the Wi-Fi Alliance, which are looking to disrupt the current in-home and peer-to-peer wireless display market currently dominated by Apple with their AirPlay streaming technology. Will either solution be able to challenge Apple's dominance? 2012 may prove to be a defining year for the wireless display market.

Intel is announcing expanded support for their WiDi technology. Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) compatible laptops and TV adapters have been around since early 2010. It requires specific laptop system specifications, including an Intel Wireless-N adapter. Earlier this year that Intel incorporated WiDi support for DRM protected DVD and Blu-Ray content, in an attempt to expand consumer interest.

Intel WiDi streams video from laptops to your HDTV
through a compatible adapter using 802.11n Wi-Fi

Until now, use of WiDi required an separate external receiver that connected to the television display. Such single-use type devices have not attracted much attention or interest from consumers. Intel's announcement at CES focuses on embedding WiDi technology into other set-top boxes and directly into televisions through a partnership with several System-on-a-Chip manufacturers that supply the components in such devices. This should help achieve broader reach for WiDi technology by being embedded into more consumers devices and eliminating the need to buy a separate single-purpose WiDi receiver.

In another announcement, Marvell and the Wi-Fi Alliance are announcing a standards-based Wi-Fi Display technology. Marvell is a silicon manufacturer of many of the wireless chipsets found in consumer electronic devices. By partnering with the Wi-Fi Alliance, Marvell hopes to drive greater adoption of their components into OEM devices through the use of a standards-based wireless display technology that will be interoperable with the large install base of Wi-Fi compatible devices.

To accomplish this, the two organizations have developed a complete Wi-Fi display software stack that is platform independent, allowing other manufacturers to eventually implement the solution. The stack includes link provisioning, management, video transcoding, HD video transport over Wi-Fi, and content security support with DRM. Link provisioning is likely built on-top of the Wi-Fi Direct peer-to-peer protocol developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance and announced this time last year at CES, but that has not been confirmed. The Wi-Fi Alliance will launch a certification program that will be available mid-2012.

This software stack is extensible to a variety of System-on-a-Chip (SoC) platforms and can take advantage of any hardware acceleration for video transcoding and security. By incorporating this technology into its wireless products, Marvell is enabling an entire ecosystem of Android and Windows based mobile devices, Wi-Fi Display HDMI dongles, DTVs, Blue-ray players and set-top boxes, such as Google TV.

However, both technologies face an uphill battle to garner enough consumer interest and market adoption to compete with Apple, whose AirPlay audio and video streaming technology currently reigns king in the wireless multimedia streaming market.

Apple's dominance in both the mobile device and digital content distribution markets have positioned AirPlay as the dominant solution. Leveraging multiple solutions in a coherent and integrated fashion has been Apple's strength and creates an ecosystem that is compelling to consumers. Apple is able to leverage existing devices that people have with their iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Airport Express, and Mac (iTunes) solutions and build an integrated service at virtually no cost to consumers. Furthermore, leveraging their content management and distribution through iTunes, consumers have even more reason to buy set-top boxes like the Apple TV which can also stream cloud-based content in addition to in-home streaming from personal libraries.

Apple AirPlay enables audio and video streaming across Wi-Fi networks

Intel will face problems competing due to their use of proprietary technology, which is similar to Apple's approach but lacks the device install base and content management ecosystem that is core to Apple's strategy. Reliance on Intel wireless chipsets available only in laptops and not mobile devices further hinders adoption as consumers clearly prefer mobile devices these days. And without a content management or distribution solution, Intel will have trouble convincing users to buy WiDi compatible receivers or set-top boxes.

Marvell and the Wi-Fi Alliance are taking a better long-term approach with a standards-based solution that will be able to leverage compatibility with any Wi-Fi capable device on the market. However, it will take time for the WFA to develop interoperability certification and manufacturers to integrate Wi-Fi Display capability into equipment. Ultimately, this may eventually prove to be an integrated feature of most mobile and home theater consumer electronics, but only time will tell. This solution also faces a similar content management and distribution problem as Intel, leaving consumers with a potentially dis-jointed solution.

Revolution or Evolution? - Andrew's Take
Apple clearly has an advantage in the wireless display and multimedia streaming market with AirPlay due to their end-to-end ecosystem with mobile devices and content management that has proven to be their core strength. Intel is taking a proprietary, closed system approach, which will limit device support and availability to Intel equipped laptops and a small contingent of set-top boxes. Marvell and the Wi-Fi Alliance is taking a more open, standards-based approach, but it will take time for manufacturers to adopt and deploy the technology. And both solutions still lack the cohesive ecosystem that differentiates Apple from the rest of the market.

Ultimately, Apple is able to leverage that ecosystem of devices, software, and streaming in a integrated, seamless fashion that creates greater value for consumers. Unless these new solutions can offer broad availability and compatibility across the consumer electronics industry, I don't see how they can effectively compete with Apple. Marvell and the Wi-Fi Alliance are in the best position to execute on that vision, but it will take time. 2012 may prove to be a year where these vendors test market strategy and look to gain manufacturer support, but don't expect to see a large amount of devices available on the market. AirPlay will still reign king for some time to come.

Cheers,
Andrew