Archive for the 'CWUSB' Category

The fever is long gone.  Brain cells lost never come back.

I’m told by my “friend” Mick Posner my last blog “I have a fever” was “lame”
In response, another collegue and ally said “When’s Mick going to start his blog?”

Strangely enough, readership is up.

I learned new things (while feverish) as I caught up on 5 Lost episodes.  After watching 2 episodes on my tiny iPod screen, I discovered that ABC streams the HD versions of the entire 4 seasons on their website for free.  I think this is the only show available like this in the world, but I have only looked at NBC, ABC, and BBC sites.  For Lost, every 12 minutes or so, I watch a 30 second commercial that I can’t skip, both in-house ads and commercials for Jack-In-The-Box, Nissan, and other stuff.  This is pretty cool.  As the video loads, the resolution gets better over the first minute or so.  This is great because I can start watching immediately.

I also discovered that I don’t really need to see all the scenes in HD.  I mean, HD is cool.  But seeing the cuts and bruises on people that have been downtrodden isn’t exactly what I was thinking of.  (I don’t have a Blu-Ray player or HD signal into my home).  I defintely prefer HD for watching “Cars” upscaled from a DVD to 480p.  Pixar Rules.

Back to Lost in HD, so if I’m sitting in front of my PC or TV, and have 45 minutes free and I have broadband, then I can watch “Lost” for free in HD.  However, I’ve discovered this almost never happens.  I’m not sitting anywhere watching anything.  I only watch consistantly at the Gym maybe 2-3 times a week on the treadmill.  So I still need to carry around my video.  I don’t enjoy the iPod screen size, but it’s really convenient.  I like to have video available when I want it.  I want to watch what I want to watch.

What will I pay for this?  About $2 for 48 minutes of entertainment. This is based on the price of a show on/in iTunes store.  I have bought Ugly Betty at this price on iTunes.  Yes, I watch Ugly Betty, or at least I used to until I lost interest last fall.  Based on my Netflix subscription price, and the frequency that I actually watch these (mostly at the gym) I figure I’m paying a little more than a dollar per 48 minutes for these rented DVDs.

My dream Portable Media Player – I want a flash based device with a screen of at least 9 inchs, about the size of an Airbook.  If the device had 80GB of space, weighed less than 2 lbs and had a battery life of 4 hours.  I would probably pay $300, plus $2 for each 48 minutes of content.  I actually think I might pay up to $400, but I’m more of a value guy, so I’d wait for it to drop to $300.  I really wonder who would pay what for how much?

USB 3.0 for wired battery charging and data transfer and CWUSB for wireless transfers with a docking station for power and maybe even holding it up during viewing.   I don’t need web-browsing or digital camera or anything else.  Just music and movies, lightweight, and a large, thin screen.

What does your dream portable media player look like?
What would you pay?

 Portable Media Player USB 3.0 Wireless USB

Some great news for Wireless USB. 

Looks like HP is going to be deploying a few products with Certified Wireless USB this year, 2008 according to Rick Merritt in a discussion with Phil McKinney, Chief Technologist at HP.   The first products will be based on dongles, but this is a good start.  Phil tells Rick that this is as trial year for Wireless USB.  Let’s hope it goes well with Dell already shipping laptop PCs with the option, hopefully more manufacturers will include a build option with Wireless USB Hosts.

 Which brings us to…

Realtek reports that it has a single chip CMOS chip for a CWUSB Host.  This is critical to bringing prices down on the overall solution.  Instead of separate digital and radio chips, Realtek and it’s customers will be able to package a single chip module.  This should give Realtek a cost advantage in the market, and better pricing flexibility.  This means Dell and other companies will have lower cost options to implement CWUSB and we will see more PCs with wireless in 2008, probably this summer.

 Of course, Synopsys’ whole IP business is about integration to lower costs, so I’m pretty biased.

CWUSB Certified Wireless USB Wireless USB UWB CES 2008 Realtek HP

Dean Takehashi points out that CES 2008 is about connecting to the home network.  The keynotes by Bill Gates and Paul Otellini point to more wireless/portable devices on the way, both in concept and reality. 

 It seems to me that USB, specifically Hi-Speed USB or USB 2.0 will dominate the way we share and move content around the home.  It’s a one-plug fits all.  My DVD player has a USB host port so I can stick in thumb drive or a USB digital camera, and view the photos on my 46″ Sharp TV instead of my camera’s 2.5″ TV.  It’s point-to-point.  No additional software. No additional setup.  No network to setup.

In Silicon Valley, WiFi continues to migrate into more devices, but Certified Wireless USB over takes WiFi by 2010/2011 in consumer devices as the power savings and data rate are just plain better than WiFi.   The ease of use of CWUSB will also help speed adoption.

Outside Silicon Valley, we will see the average consumer using USB 2.0 more.  My feeling is, talking to my friends in Minnesota and Illinois, a WiFi network is more common now, but file sharing and moving media around the home is not so common.  So I think, we will see even more wired USB on more home products at the same time that WiFi and Wireless USB enter more products.  A new product I’ve seen called TakeTV basically lets you dump Video onto a little flash drive on your PC, then you walk over to a dongle plugged into your TV set, and you can watch the video on your TV.  It’s not on-demand, but requires a low-level of technical expertise.  No Firewalls, IP Addresses, or Encryption to deal with.

As USB 3.0 enters the market in the next few years, we will see an even faster transition for devices with HD content that has “huge” file sizes (hard drives, set top boxes, media players). 

 See Dean Takehashi’s Blog for insights on CES.

Hi-Speed USB USB 3.0 USB 2.0 CES 2008 Wireless USB

In addition to a Wish for Wireless USB products, I like toys.  PC Magazine has 10 USB powered gift ideas .  I like the Solar Powered Bluetooth car-kit for use in your card (it charges via USB also).  I figure, if I leave this on the dash of my car, it will charge enough for my drive home and drive to work each day.  I also love the USB Microscope.  Mattel had one like this years ago, and I’m glad to see there is one again.  This is one toy I might get for my kids.  But they are spoiled enough already.

USB Wireless USB

Looks like the IOGear and other Certified Wireless USB products are available now on Amazon.  I just received a Google Alert telling me that Tom’ Hardware Review Holiday Gift Giving Guide recommends the IOGear product.  My dad has been bugging me for a USB 2.0 Hub, but I think this is better.  The USB 2.0 Hub works great, but if I give him the Wireless Version, all the peripherals stay plugged into the Wireless Hub and he just plugs a USB Stick (like a flash drive) into the Laptop and he’s done.  One less cable.
I looked under my desk at home the other day, and with the 8 Power Cables, 6 USB cables,  2 1394 cables, and 2 speaker cables.  At least I could reduce the 8 USB cables to 1 with Wireless. 

Tags Correctly updated 12/6/07

USB CWUSB Wireless USB Certified Wireless USB IOGear UWB Ultra-wideband

The Price of CWUSB products.
As I recall WiFi pairs when they were introduced were $500 or more at their introduction back in before 1999? And that was when $500 was worth something.  I adopted WiFi in 2003 when the pairs cost about $230.  As I recall this is around the time 802.11b was introduced at a price premium in the laptop chipset.  You still needed to buy a router for $120 in those days.  How fast did the throughput those systems run?  Did we need to cut cables in 2000? 2003? Can we live without WiFi today?

$200 is a reasonable price for the first products.
I think the $200 price is reasonable for a first generation device, and for those people willing to accept early data rates and cut 4 cables (not just 1). The throughput isn’t what was hyped, but hey, Draft-N just got there after pre-N has been in the market for 2 years.  When will we see “N” products that interoperate at high speeds?  I see nothing in the press on this.  Isn’t that interesting? Did 802.11b ever achieve 12 Mbps?

Critics of Wireless USB are right.  There must be compelling uses. There must be “decent” throughput.  There must be ubiquity in some device.

BUT, WiFi was ratified in 1997.  CWUSB in 2005.  WiFi started at 12Mbps technology. CWUSB achieves 35Mbps today at 1/2 the price (dollars unadjusted).  My best guess is CWUSB will be at 3x-5x these speeds within 2 years.

Effective Throughput
Lots of questions still on the internet regarding the Effective Throughput of Certified Wireless USB.  I think the article Is Ultrawideband still a viable wireless technology? gives an even-handed review pointing out the technical problems. It seems like all the companies with UWB products claim higher throughputs than the current products on the market.  I’m not sure why this data isn’t more publically published.  Alereon’s CEO talks about the performance of Native Devices in his blog.  (A Native device doesn’t use Wired USB.  On your Laptop this means it’s an ExpressCard or integrated into a chipset. )  Alereon observes speeds in excess of 125 Mbps and expects faster speeds by CES 2008. 

Eric is right on his blog.  Native devices will go faster.  We’ve achieved comparable native speeds in our lab with our own IP, but that is a topic for another entry.

I’m looking forward to the WiMedia UWB Technology – A Reality where I’m hoping more companies will demonstrate better throughput.  It’s free in Santa Clara on December 6, 2007.

60 GHz, CWUSB, WUSB, Certified Wireless USB, UWB, Ultra-wideband, WiMedia, USB-IF, Hi-Speed USB, USB 2.0, USB Certification, Throughput, Alereon, IP

I agreed to do this blog because there is so little opinionated stuff debunking the debunkers of Wireless USB. Yes, I’m a USB chauvinist, and a Wireless USB chauvinist, but I understand how this stuff gets adopted and used.  At least in my own mind.

USB Won, Certified Wireless will Win - So here’s the thing.  The USB-IF has the best certification and interoperability program of all the standards I’ve seen.  It has regular plug-fests for free testing, and 3^rd party labs for fee-based testing.  Procedures are clearly described, and there are gold tree tests with a range of USB devices.  Does your wired Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0) printer/camera/widget work with a standard PC or laptop?  If it has the logo, it works.  This is one of the main reasons USB 2.0 is so ubiquitous.  Stuff with the USB Everything works together if it gets the logo.   USB is the most successful because of that.  CWUSB based on UWB will use the same infrastructure of spec, compliance, and logo.  

I’ve seen material attacking Certified Wireless USB and UWB.  Mostly based on the earliest product reviews.  For those of us around at the start of USB 2.0, this is like Deja Vu (no accents, sorry don’t speak French).  It’s true, the first UWB products are getting effective throughputs of 20 Megabits per second.  But, what was the real throughput of WiFi products at the beginning?  What are they now?  How much to people actually use?

The EETimes published this article on higher throughputs with 60GHz radios and WiFi as potential alternatives to UWB at gigabit speeds..  http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=W5B1LJS4T5R5SQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=202601507.

I also want a gigabit pipe into my house for $24.99 a month, but that ain’t happening.

60GHz is years away – Look, I’m super glad people are working on 60MHz, but beating out UWB?  This is just plain crazy talk. 60GHz radios are 5-7 years away from any kind of adoption. It’s true that these could be used widely in proprietary solutions, like point-to-point video in the near future.  And I’m sure there’s good technology.  However, the standards will not be in place for at least 2 years which means interoperability is 4 years out, and mass market adoption is further out.  (Sidenote: A friend of mine recently told me that they’ve been talking about 60GHz for 20 years)

802.11n here but interoperable? – And WiFi. WiFi is bigger than my ego. It’s everywhere.  I used it in 8 locations on my last trip to
Europe.  BUT, 802.11g’s maximum effective throughput is in the range of 20-25 Mbps.  The 802.11n standard has gone for 3 years of pre-N and “Draft-N” products.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft-NI have yet to see interoperability throughput results for products based on different chipsets.   If anyone can find this info please let me know.  The most recent article I found here: http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/06/airport-extreme-802-11n-base-station-tested-and-dissected/ gives a throughput of 9 MB/second (about 72 Megabits/second) at short ranges and 500KB/second (~4 Megabits/second) at 300feet.

Netgear product tests out at an impressive 100+ Megabits/second http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1978612,00.asp but I’m still concerned a bit with interoperability.  Can I get 100 Mbps if the Draft-N chip in my laptop is different from the chip in the Router?  In the early days of WiFi, I vaguely recall that you had to have an SMC router and an SMC PCMCIA card to make the darn things work together. (I set up Linksys routers for me, my mom/dad, and my sister in about 2002).

UWB and Wireless USB Resources

Start here and look at the USB-IF at www.usb.org for lots of great information, specs and events.  WiMedia has good material at www.wimedia.org.

http://blog.alereon.com/  This start-up, Alereon, has some articles on UWB, Wireless USB, Regulations and other stuff.  Check on the CEO’s blog.  http://www.staccatocommunications.com/technology/articles.html This start-up, Staccato, more articles.

60 GHz, CWUSB, WUSB, Certified Wireless USB, UWB, Ultra-wideband, WiMedia, USB-IF, Hi-Speed USB, USB 2.0, USB Certification, Throughput, Alereon, Realtek, Staccato