A Bluetooth killer or an enhancer? Seems Nokia's announcement today about its Wibree technology may be either one.
A unique radio technology extending local connectivity to small devices, Wibree is an open industry initiative developed by Nokia Research Center.
It complements other local connectivity technologies, consuming only a fraction of the power compared to other radio technologies, therfore enabling smaller and less costly solutions.
Wibree is the first open technology offering connectivity between mobile devices or Personal Computers and small, button cell battery power devices, such as watches, wireless keyboards, toys and sports sensors.
With a goal of having the new technology available as soon as possible, Nokia is defining the Wibree interoperability specification together with a group of companies representing semiconductor manufacturers, device vendors and qualification service providers. These include Broadcom Corporation, CSR, Epson and Nordic Semiconductor as well as Suunto and Taiyo Yuden.
Sounds pretty cool ...
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: Nokia's Been Busy in the Lab
Tags:
bluetooth,
broadcom,
csr,
epson,
nokia,
nordic semiconductor,
suunto,
taiyo yuden,
wibree
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on October 3rd, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Mobile Phones and bluetooth and nokia and Broadcom.
Chip industry is having a very bad day. Intel is cutting a 1000 jobs, which is well a drop in the bucket for a company that is bloated and feels downright dowdy. Then 34 states are suing eight DRAM (memory commonly used in PCs) makers alleging price fixing.
Of the eight, Samsung is feeling heat of its own. Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung saw its second-quarter net profit fell 11%, and margins tighten on its chip business. And if that was no enough, Broadcom Corp., long viewed as the leader amongst mere mortals, got dragged into the options scandal. The company says it will record additional non-cash stock-based compensation expense of more than $750 million mostly because it is now correcting its books for past stock-option grants.
Ironic part is that the chip stocks are almost flat, just like the SOX, the chip index not the baseball team.
Written by Om Malik on July 14th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on intel and samsung and Tech Companies and Broadcom.
Broadcom today announced that the
Broadcom Wi-Fi phone now supports
Skype software. Similar to other Pc-less
Skype phones, you will be able to scroll through your contacts, see presence info, make free Skype-to-Skype calls, as well as SkypeIn and SkypeOut support if you paid for these optional services. The beauty of this WiFi Skype phone is of course you don't have to be tethered to your PC, nor does this Skype phone have to communicate with a base station connected (via USB) to a PC running Skype.
The handset features include a high-resolution color display, speakerphone and Buffalo’s AOSS easy configuration protocol. The Buffalo Wi-Fi phone will be Skype Certified and available for the Japanese market in November 2006. The handset comes with everything built-in to connect to Skype via any personal, business or free public Wi-Fi access point that
does not require browser authentication. 
Why don't they build in a simple browser so you can authenticate on hotspots that require web-based authentication? Ok, so it adds a few cents/dollars to the cost, so what? Ok, maybe licensing an operating system that can run a mini-browser is more expensive than I realize, but seriously... How bout embedded Linux? That I assume is practically free. And flash memory is pretty cheap these days too, so they should be able to fit a browser application plus the underlying OS to support it.
In any event, Broadcom’s Wi-Fi phone reference design consists of the BCM1161 mobile VoIP processor and BCM4318E AirForce One 54g chip. The BCM1161 integrates an ARM9 CPU, an analog voice codec with a direct microphone and high-output speaker interface, a 2 megapixel camera interface, a 262k color LCD display interface, a polyphonic ringer and USB interface into a single-chip solution. Broadcom claims that the BCM4318E is Broadcom’s smallest and most cost-effective 54g client solution, integrating a high-performance 2.4 GHz radio, IEEE 802.11a/b/g baseband processor, medium access controller (MAC) and other components onto a single chip.
Since Broadcom typically creates chip reference designs and then manufacturers take the chip reference designs and build the final end-user product, it's unclear from this news if Broadcom is creating the final end-user Skype phone product. I emailed my contacts at Broadcom for clarification and I asked for a photo. I will update this post when I find out more.
Update:
Tom: Since Broadcom typically creates chip reference designs and then manufacturers take the chip reference designs and build the final end-user product, it's unclear from this news if Broadcom is creating the final end-user Skype phone product
Broadcom: Broadcom worked with Skype to port its software onto the reference design. The OEM then builds the end product with the Skype-ready reference design.
Tom: It's available in Japan, what about U.S.?
Broadcom: Buffalo has not provided US availability yet.
As for a photo, the Broadcom rep said that a photo wasn't made available yet. No Photo? A poor way to announce news in my humble opinion.
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: Broadcom PC-less Skype Wi-Fi phone
Tags:
broadcom,
pc-less,
phone,
skype,
wifi
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on January 1st, 1970 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and WiFi and phone and Broadcom.