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Texas Instruments' new chips: 10 percent of the power use: TI announced new Wi-Fi chipsets due out in the 4th quarter that will use as little as 10 percent of the power required for current generation chips. The company said that handhelds could get an additional 25 percent battery life and laptops about 6 percent because of this power drop. A variety of coverage: EE Times, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle, EBNews, and 802.11 Planet. [via Sifry Alerts]
Conexant Systems adds Intersil Wi-Fi chips to DSL and cable modem designs: This move by Conexant Systems moves Wi-Fi into the de facto consumer space: equipment that consumers will use or build on top of because it's there and they didn't have to buy or configure it. Such integration lowers the overall cost of jumping into Wi-Fi because the price of a DSL or cable modem is already subsidized, and an additional chipset and antenna will only increase manufacturing costs by a small amount -- maybe $25 to $30 per unit in quantity. This puts Wi-Fi on the same ground as HomeRF, which has been more successful at pushing the integrated agenda.
Proxim upgrades AP-2000: 802.11a add-on, new firwmare: As one of their first moves after finishing the acquisition of the Orinoco product line from Agere, Proxim has released a kit to add 802.11a support to the AP-2000 access point. The kit is a simple CardBus 802.11a card that slides into an empty slot of an AP-2000. The revised firmware adds VLAN support, Ultra High Density cell size, and automatic channel selection. VLAN supports allows two overlaid networks: one that's secure and one that's for guest access via the same AP. The list price of the AP-2000 is $895; it's aimed at enteprises. The 802.11a kit is $249. The firmware revision is a free download for existing AP-2000 owners.
NPR segment on wardriving: Listen and learn.
Apple updates its AirPort design guide: The new version covers building out AirPort networks using the 2.0 Base Station and OS X 10.2, which restored the software base station option available in OS 9.
Pushback on the Nokia D311 card's speed: Yesterday, I pointed to an article noting a dual Wi-Fi/GPRS phone, and that it's speed was limited to 14.4 kbps. Gerton de Goeij of Logica Consulting in The Netherlands wrote to correct this: [Gizmodo noted that] the GPRS is low speed for the US card, but that is not true. The European and US card have the same speed (40.2 kbit/s in current networks with coding scheme 2). The slower datarate of 14.4 kbit/s refers to CSD (circuit switched data). The higher datarate to HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Swithed Data) which bundles CSD channels. This is only available in a few european countries (e.g. germany). So it would be more accurate to say the card has the capability but not the ability to connect at the higher speeds. The lower speed is a GSM limit, not a GPRS limit.
The Netherlands commercial Wi-Fi rollout: Another Dutch reader, Leon Buijs, notes that the Hubhop service, currently free, is rolling out 40 Wi-Fi hot spots in Dixons stores across The Netherlands. Dixons has a 132 stores. The rollout is in conjunction with Apple and will use Apple Base Stations. Two locations are currently active.
Fake out lame network crackers: It won't solve the problem of dedicated crackers, but folks running Netstumbler and other software will find themselves overwhelmed with fake network beacons using this software. [via Gizmodo]
UWB scare because of disintermediation?: David Janes rants about the attempt to hijack UWB's potential by alleging interference with airplane systems without the details necessary to understand what kind of UWB transmissions and at what power levels were used. David makes a reasonable case, but I think he overstates the sales angle of this: there are many, many companies that stand to gain from the sale of UWB equipment, just as billions of dollars of Wi-Fi equipment (equally disintermediate but short range) are being sold now.
New Wi-Fi public hot spot listing site: Noel Jackson has started up OpenNodes.com, a site that will make an attempt at collecting self-reported design-to-be-open Wi-Fi nodes.