Crappy consumer products, a healthy dose of public apathy and a lack of integrated support from most major electronics companies doesn't leave much upside for UWB. But what do I know? I was convinced Minidisc was the music format of the future. [Electronista]

Westinghouse Digital and Pulse~LINK Unveil the World's First Fully Integrated Wireless HDTV at CES 2008

Las Vegas, NV—January 3, 2008—Westinghouse Digital Electronics, one of the top five LCD manufacturers in the U.S.*, and Pulse~LINK, Inc., the UWB semiconductor performance leader, today introduced the world's first fully integrated wireless HDTV. The High Definition LCD TV, featuring Pulse~LINK's integrated CWave® UWB Wireless HDMI technology, will be on display for the first time at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 7-10. An initial debut will take place at the CES Unveiled press event on Saturday, January 5, in the Sands/Venetian Marco Polo Ballroom, followed by demonstrations throughout the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center in the Pulse~LINK booth (South Hall 2, #25559) and in the Westinghouse Digital booth (South Hall 1, #21707).

"Our focus at Westinghouse Digital has been centered around delivering the best HD has to offer," states John Araki, Vice President and General Manager, Commercial Business Unit, at Westinghouse Digital Electronics. "HDMI digital transport provides the full HD resolution our customers expect and we are extremely impressed with the performance and capabilities of Pulse~LINK's Wireless HDMI solution. The fact that it is fully integrated into our HDTV display is unprecedented in the industry and will certainly raise expectations for high quality ready to mount wall display products in the marketplace."

The Westinghouse Digital Wireless HDMI HDTV is planned for initial commercial release to the B2B digital signage market in Q2 2008. CWave® HDMI products offer real-time visually lossless wireless streaming of high quality audio and video content between entertainment source devices and HDTV displays. With the integration of CWave® Wireless HDMI, digital display products can be mounted anywhere in the room without needing to run data cabling from the TV to the content source, such as a DVR, Blu-ray or HD DVD player, or a live cable or satellite feed. Video data is encoded using the JPEG2000 video codec, the same codec used by movie theaters for "Digital Cinema," providing a secure high quality HD experience. Pulse-LINK's Wireless HDMI solution is engineered to be equivalent in both content protection and visual experience to a wired HDMI connection.

Pulse~LINK recently announced that its FCC Certified CWave® UWB chipset was validated in independent testing to be the world's fastest commercially available wireless networking technology. A comprehensive test of UWB products, conducted by octoScope, showed CWave's 1.35 Gbps over-the-air signaling rate delivering 890 Mbps application layer throughput - faster than any other wireless product currently available. Wireless range was also impressive in the test report- with CWave surpassing 500 Mbps at 8 feet and more than 115 Mbps up to 40 feet, at which point they ran out of space in the test facility.

"This is an eye opener. People are going to deeply desire this Westinghouse Digital Wireless HDMI HDTV in their living room as soon as they see it at CES," states Bruce Watkins, Pulse~LINK President and Chief Operating Officer. "We've been leading the technical pursuit of this for several years. Pulse~LINK has publicly demonstrated various wireless HDTV radio prototypes for some time, but nothing compares to the real thing when you finally see it. Actually watching this gorgeous Westinghouse High Definition television - with nothing coming out of the TV accept the power cord and a vibrant high definition image - is an experience beyond comparison with anything that has come prior to now. This really changes everything."

Pulse~LINK is the only semiconductor company to deliver production silicon with Gigabit data rates for both wired and wireless HD video distribution. A long time recognized innovator of UWB technology, Pulse~LINK was the first company to demonstrate Wireless HDMI in 2005 and continues to set the performance bar for high data rate wireless connectivity. Pulse~LINK also invented the use of Ultra Wideband over coax systems and was the first to patent and demonstrate this revolutionizing technology for streaming HD content throughout the home.

• Wireless output resolutions up to 1680x1050 with 16.7 million colors
• Smooth DVD video playback and quick responsiveness
• "Feels and looks...exactly like a wired display"
The wired version of USB displays can often appear painfully low-res, and be crap for delivering DVD, so these are some mighty claims indeed.

DisplayLink and Alereon Announce World's First Wireless USB Graphics Adapter

WiMedia-Certified AL5000 Chipset Enables High-Quality Wireless Displays

PALO ALTO, Calif.— Dec. 10, 2007 (BUSINESS WIRE)—DisplayLink and Alereon today jointly announced the availability of a reference design for a Wireless USB display adapter that allows PCs to connect to nearby standard displays without wires while delivering beautiful image quality and instantaneously interactive performance.

The reference design enables PC accessory OEMs to easily develop wireless display connectivity adapters and similar products. It will be demonstrated publicly by Alereon at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2008) from Jan. 7-12, 2008 in Las Vegas, NV, in the WiMedia Pavilion (WiMedia Booth South Hall 3 - Booth# 31642) and in the Wireless USB Pavilion (South Hall 4 - Booth# 35625).

The reference design pairs Alereon's Worldwide WiMedia Alliance®-certified AL5000 chipset with DisplayLink's network display technology to provide a solution that achieves the high image quality and the performance of wired displays without the wires. In addition, this is the only adapter design available that allows manufacturers to produce a Wireless USB adapter that meets all regulatory requirements across the globe.

The design uses Wireless USB to deliver fast ultra-wideband (UWB) speeds using a standard wireless USB input and output resolutions up to 1680 x 1050 and 16.7 million colors with smooth DVD video playback and quick responsiveness.

"A display connected using this wireless reference design feels and looks to a user exactly like a wired display," said Hamid Farzaneh, DisplayLink president and CEO. "As evidenced by the proliferation of wireless mice and keyboards, the availability of the technology to bring the same freedom to monitors is just what OEMs need to spur explosive growth in this market."

Because the design is based on Alereon's Worldwide WiMedia Alliance-certified AL5000 chipset, products based on it will be compatible with future Wireless USB-enabled notebook computers from major PC vendors.

"Providing a standards-based design is critical for our OEM partners so they can be assured of compatibility with broadly available laptops and notebooks," said Eric Broockman, CEO of Alereon. "Our partners require the combination of standards-based wireless technology, exceptional throughput and worldwide footprint to achieve mass adoption."

Alereon's AL5000 Worldwide Wireless USB chipset integrates all of the essential RF circuitry, including synthesizer VCO/PLL, anti-alias filters, LNAs and transmit/receive (T/R) switches, Media Access Controller (MAC) and Baseband Processor (BBP). The chipset is bundled with all the firmware and software drivers necessary to develop a worldwide Wireless USB product covering the entire WiMedia spectrum from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz. The AL5000 Worldwide Wireless USB chipset is the only available chipset that meets all regulatory requirements worldwide.

DisplayLink technology is comprised of high-performance Hardware Rendering Engine (HRE) network display chips and Virtual Graphics Card (VGC) software that power high-quality, fully interactive 32-bit true-color graphics with real-time video playback across a USB link. They are designed for monitor manufacturers, PC OEMs and PC accessory companies who want to develop easy to use high performance products such as USB-connected monitors, video-capable USB laptop docking stations, Skype video phones, picture frames and other devices. The company's adaptive compression algorithm and graphics protocol can also transmit graphics over other standard network interfaces, including wireless USB, Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

The Woo part of the product name is in fact an accompanying external tuner, which has been separated from the televisions to shave off a few inches. The digital tuner houses 3 x HDMI inputs, SD/MMC slot, iVDR recorder and an Ethernet port. The televisions will all have 2 x 6W speakers, 1 x HDMI/1 x D-sub inputs and an impressive 178degree viewing angle. An optional UWB hub will allow for streaming with a 9m range and will cost an additional ¥90 000 ($786). If all those facts have not got you hot under the collar, check out those white leather boots—saucy. [AV Watch]

[Gadgetress]

Well, it's about time we saw a UWB device finally available. We saw this four-port hub at CES almost a year ago, when Belkin reps told us it would ship in March. Can it perform as advertised? We'll test those bold claims. – Charlie White

Product Page [Belkin]

First UWB Hub Ships in Japan [Everything USB]

The antenna can reportedly be molded into versatile shapes using proprietary polymer technology, better fit it into a variety of devices. Hmm. Wouldn't this be a nice addition to Apple's upcoming iTV unit? MIMO or something like it will probably be necessary for such a unit to transmit HDTV signals. Could this be a key part of the iTV system we didn't see at the recent Jobsian love feast? – Charlie White

Omron announced the first UWB antenna to transmit HD video [Akihabara News]

This hub uses UWB (ultra wideband) wireless technology. The data transfer rate can get as fast as 100 mbps over a 10 meter distance without any obstacles in the way. This hub will be available in Japan and expect to pay at least $200 for her. – Travis Hudson

UWB Hub coming in October [Newlaunches]

That kind of speed blows the doors off Bluetooth 2.0, which pokes along at a mere 721Kbps 2.1 Mbps. The new Bluetooth gets its exponentially faster speed by teaming up with ultra wideband technology (UWB). But there are other contenders using similar tech such as Wireless USB (also 480Mbps), and it's hard to tell how these various protocols will compete with each other. The way we see it, Bluetooth is for near-distance, or personal area networking and Wireless USB has farther reach. But with the increased distance of Wireless USB, what would be the point of a shorter-distance protocol such as Bluetooth? Looks like we might have a horserace on our hands. Commenters, thoughts? – Charlie White

Next-generation Bluetooth technology may hit market in 2007 [TG Daily]

Belkin CableFree USB Hub Delayed [TechNudge Live]

I thought the cooperation to find a single ultra-wideband standard seemed to good to be true, and now we can kiss the idea goodbye for quite a while as the IEEE Task Group TG3a disbands. Forced together to come up with this standard, it seems that the group has given up because the members of the WiMedia Alliance and the UWB Forum, who were part of the group, had no intention of straying from their own agendas. Oh well, back to the drawing boards—and the standards wars rage on.

Ultra wideband task force disbands without standard [Mobilemag]