Gizmodo: ieee

We Should Have 1Gbps Wi-Fi by 2012

Rosa Golijan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:19:32 EST

The IEEE has begun voting on the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard recently. And while things aren't even in the drafting phrase yet, this means that we should see the new standard—and the theoretical 1Gbps speeds it brings—by December 2012.

Between this protocol and Windows 8, it seems that 2012 will be an exciting year. [Ars Technica via Electronista]

Philips Emotion Jacket Touches You In Movie Theaters

Wilson Rothman — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:00:00 EDT

End of Titanic. Rose floating on debris, Jack in the water. You want to cry but can't. Philips' new concept jacket gives you a little hug (out of sympathy? pity?) and there go the waterworks.

Philips senior scientist Paul Lemmens and a team of researchers have devised a jacket—but sorry dudes, no matching pants—that augments your emotions with gentle nudges, squeezes and taps. The point? To cause "a shiver to go up the viewer's spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs," Lemmens told IEEE Spectrum, on the eve of the World Haptics Conference where he's presenting the jacket.

Lemmens says that during a Bruce Lee fight scene, the jacket can pulse with the gu-goong gu-goong gu-goong of an elevated heartbeat. (All good, until you remember that Bruce Lee's heart rate never went above 42 beats per minute his whole life.)

The jacket's versatile fondling techniques come from 64 actuators, clustered in groups of four along different parts of the torso and arms—eight in each sleeve, for instance. They are low-powered enough to be run on two AA batteries for an hour, but hopefully they'll make room for more batteries, since the average movie is over 2 hours, including trailers. The signals to pinch your arm, tighten your chest, or sooth your back would come from the film itself, kinda like how those D-Box motion chairs follow pre-determined cues that are synced with the action on the screen.

I'm willing to buy into the argument that a little more physical interaction would heighten my emotional appreciation of a movie, but I just can't help feeling it's the premise of a corny but terrifying episode of The Outer Limits? [IEEE Spectrum]

Wireless Roaming Wi-Fi 802.11r Standard Beats 11n to Completion

Kit Eaton — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:39:00 EDT

The 802.11n standard for Wi-Fi may still be technically a draft specification, but the IEEE has now completed the 802.11r specs, making a new standard for Wi-Fi roaming. Why should you care about this? It's designed for those moments when a Wi-Fi-connected device moves between hotspots, something the original 802.11 specs didn't have in mind. Typically a transition between spots involves a drop and re-associate delay of around 0.1 seconds, which is enough to drop a VoIP call: 802.11r allows re-association with the new Wi-Fi source in less than 0.05 seconds, which should keep your call connected. The specs and also cover security associations and reservation of QoS resources for roaming Wi-Fi connections and have been under development for four years. [DailyWireless]

Bionic Body Shop is Much Less Girly Than Current Body Shop

Jason Chen — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:20:00 EDT

IEEE, the industry trade mag for gigantic nerds, has this cool Flash demo of what a bionic body shop of the future would look like. Just pick out the parts of your body you'd want to enhance—hand, leg, heart, eyeball, ear, brain, ~~peepee~~, foot or bladder—and it'll show you how much the add-on will cost. It's a part of their report on "the Singularity," which is an eventual breakthrough in science or technology that will revolutionize humanity. Adding robotic or super-improved parts to yourself definitely qualifies as one. [IEEE]

WiMAX pt. Deux: 1Gbit Speed, 4G Compliance

www.gizmodo.com — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:13:20 EST

Recently, the IEEE has been hard at work ironing out the details on their latest Wi-Fi project dubbed '802.16m.'

The new standard will feature wireless speeds of up to 1Gbit, multiple-input/multiple-output technology (MIMO), and backwards compatibility with existing WiMAX infrastructures.

The IEEE says it wants to develop a "competitive" and "significantly improved" radio access technology that is "compliant with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) R/IMT advanced requirements for 4G" while maintaining interoperability with mobile WiMax.

The IEEE is campaigning hard for this to become the underlying technology of 4G networks. It's slated for a 2009 unveiling, but don't hold your breath—judging by previous instances, this will probably show up sometime around the year two-thousand-never. Show us a US blanket of 3G before you start dangling the next step around, mmmkay?– Alexander Yoon

DailyWireless [via engadget]

Anal Old Men Make One Small Step Toward 802.11n

Jason Chen — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:30:54 EST

Good news for 802.11n fans. The IEEE committee has just finished resolving the 12,000 comments—a.k.a. things companies didn't like—about the 802.11n protocol. Draft 2.0 has been advanced with a 100-0 vote with 5 abstentions (you can probably guess how those 5 were going to vote), which means it's now going out for a letter ballot.

If those nerdy, stodgy dudes decide they don't have a problem with the draft, draft 802.11n should become final 802.11n within a few months. Yippee? – Jason Chen

802.11 Task Group N goes back to letter ballot [MatthewGast via WifiNetNews via DSLReports]

802.11n Delayed Even Further

Jason Chen — Mon, 22 May 2006 16:44:37 EDT

Wi-Fi Networking News got tipped off by an anonymous IEEE member (it wasn't us, we only joined for the magazines) that the 802.11n draft is going to be very delayed.

Instead of receiving the standard 2,000 comments on the draft, the committee received 12,000. Thus, the vote is again going to be nowhere near the 75% required to ratify the draft.

Their guess, November '06 or January '07 for a draft. That means higher speeds will have to wait. But if you want broader coverage, current generation MIMO gear can provide it with their Multiple-In-Multiple-Out antennas. But those Draft-N device look like an even worse idea now if you want compatibility with future N gear.

802.11n Slides Further into the Future [Wi-Fi Net News]

2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

Jason Chen — Thu, 18 May 2006 18:05:03 EDT

The greatest minds in robotics are gathering in Orlando, Florida to exchange information and ~~hear themselves talk~~ hear talks given on humanoid robots. A central topic: lifelike robots. One of the purposes of building these lifelike robots is to increase understanding of the human body, such as the dynamic robot-face shown above.

Scientists formulate theories about how various systems of the human body work, and roboticists believe that some of these theories can be verified or rejected by building robots.

Good luck gentlemen, and try not to get us all killed.

A Meeting Of The Metal Minds [Popular Mechanics]