Tag: Wireless
Nintendo wants all Wii owners online
Nintendo has started a massive marketing push to get Wii owners online. Assuming, probably rightly, that most homes with a Wii have a wireless network of some sort, Ninty is engaging in an eight-week “Get it Online” ad campaign.
Currently there’s a huge banner on the Nintendo website which takes you through all the steps necessary to hook up your Wii to your wireless LAN. It’s not too tough, as you might imagine. There’s also some footage of the online features the Wii has, including the shop and the browser.
(via Tech Radar)
The Wacom Nextbeat wireless controller for DJs
Wacom, best known for its graphics tablets has suddenly and unexpectedly announced that it’s bringing out a completely different bit of hardware – a DJ controller.
The Wacom Nextbeat contains a pair of digital audio players, a mixer, a sampler and some fx units. All you need to add is a phat pair of speakers, and you’ll be cranking out the tunes faster than you can say: “Have you got anything by the Shaman?”
The interesting bit is that the main circular unit and the dials above can actually be removed from the unit while it’s still operating. If you want to go see what it sounds like for your audience then you can do exactly that, while still retaining tight control of your mix.
It’ll be out sometime this summer in Europe and Japan, but there’s no word on how much it’ll cost. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on one – as a bit of an amatueur DJ, I’d love to give this a whirl in front of an audence and see how it compares to other DJ controllers.
Wacom Nextbeat (via Technabob)
Koreans to get ultra-fast broadband – 1Gb/s by 2012
In contrast to our Government’s pledge for 2Mb/s broadband for all by 2012, South Korea’s government is promising 1Gb/s! At present, they’ve got 100Mb/s pipes, and as a result their digital culture is more advanced that almost any other nation on the planet.
As well as a wired speed increase, their wireless broadband will be going up to 10Mbps, using Korea’s own WiBro standard. The whole plan will cost the country $24.6bn (£17bn) and generate 120,000 jobs. Now if they can do it, why can’t we?
(via GigaOM)
Related posts: Digital Britain | Samsung launches their high end Yepp YP-P3 in Korea
£55 for a painless 802.11n router upgrade? The Trendnet TEW-637AP Wireless Easy-N-Upgrader
If you’re still rocking an 802.11b/g wireless router, then you’re living in the dark ages, networkily-speaking. The new n standard is faster, more powerful and more secure. The problem is, though, that upgrading your router is a pain, involving painstaking copying of network settings and a significant cash outlay.
Enter the Trendnet TEW-637AP Wireless Easy-N-Upgrader. Plug it into the back of your existing router, and it’ll do everything for you, converting the network to 802.11n and keeping all your existing settings. It’s available in the USA from NewEgg for just $25, but us Brits have to pay £55 for the thing! Hopefully we’ll see a similar price cut in the near future.
Product Page (via OhGizmo!)
Related posts: 3 launches D100 wireless router for dongles | New Netgear routers, promise routing, will probably deliver
A lick of paint could stop Wi-Fi leeching neighbours
Home decoration and technology doesn’t usually sit well together, but here’s an idea from boffins at the University of Tokyo who have come up with an aluminium-iron oxide paint that can absorb the electromagnetic waves at frequencies typically used by Wi-Fi.
In other words, painting your walls with this stuff could stop your wireless signal from leaking into neighbouring houses.
Interesting concept, but surely it would be much simpler to install some basic security on the wireless router?…
Leyio Personal Sharing Device – a pimped out, wireless, flash drive
The Leyio Personal Sharing Device, or PSD as they’re calling it, is an interesting proposition. At its heart, it’s just a 16GB flash drive, but it comes with added security and sharing functionality. It utilizes UWB (Ultra-wideband) radio technology, normally used in tracking and radar, to transfer data between itself and other Leyio PSDs.
UWB operates at low energy levels, so it’s less subject to interference, but it’s short range. It enables fast transfers though – Leyio claim a 3MB photo can be exchanged in 0.3 seconds. My A-level maths suggests that that’s a 10MB/s transfer rate. Not too shabby.
WeFi online wireless hotspot directory now available
WeFi has announced a couple of new services to help mobile users locate free and pay-for Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide.
First up is the online directory that, given an address, will show where the nearest spots are — well, it will if you download a piece of software first. A phone or laptop with GPS enabled can also be used to located new hotspots automatically…
Sony debuts wireless DB-BT101 headphones, and MDR-EX36SC two-in-one headphones
This morning, Sony quietly added the DB-BT101s to its online catalogue. These rather attractive phones are wireless, and connect via Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, so they’ll happily work alongside a bluetooth laptop, PDA, mobile phone or MP3 player.
Those are the all the details we’ve got right now, but they do look lovely, so here’s hoping they’ll get some sort of Western release, along with some tangible specs, in the near future.
MiFi – a pocket-sized wireless hotspot from Novatel Wireless
You’d be amazed at how many conferences lack something that I consider to be akin to running water and oxygen – internet access. Just as you’ve got comfortable in your seat near the back of the room, you open up your laptop, wait a few seconds for Linux to resume, and then utterly fail to find any open wireless hotspots.
Rather than fiddling with trying to use your phone as a modem, just connect to the MiFi. It uses high-speed HSDPA to connect to access the net via cell networks, meaning that you won’t get much signal in the wilds of Norfolk, but given that there are very few conferences in the wilds of Norfolk, you should be okay.
The internal rechargeable battery in this thing will support up to 40 hours of standby time and 4 hours of actual use without power. It’ll be available in the States in early 2009 via broadband carriers, so we might see someone like Three distribute thing alongside its existing D100 plug-in model.
Novatel Wireless (via PC World)
Related posts: 3 launches D100 wireless router for dongles | New Netgear routers, promise routing, will probably deliver
Can you really turn your iPod touch into an iPhone with Truphone?
Truphone, ever keen to promote its free and low-cost phone services, is appealing to those who want the Apple goodness of an iPhone but don’t want to pay large upfront bills or sign up to an extortionate monthly contract.
The “solution” is to buy an iPod touch, which is considerably cheaper than an iPhone (but still more expensive than a lot of mobile phones of course) and use Truphone’s application to make free calls over Wi-Fi to other Truphone or Google Talk users.
There are three fundamental problems with this if you’re hoping for an always on, out-of-the-box solution (don’t you love those kind of phrases?)…
