Today's 802.11b Networking News is sponsored by FatPort's access point for the rest of us -- FatPoint
Today's news is also sponsored by Vernier Networks, enabling companies to rapidly deploy and operate secure, scalable, and mission-critical 802.11 wireless networks.
The above are paid, sponsored links. Contact us for more information.
Microsoft readies Thursday announcement for entry to home gateway market: News.com reports on Microsoft's remarkably unsophisticated entry into the commodity home gateway market. By offering a device that sounds as if it has practically no unique features or better pricing (in fact slightly worse) than the commodity home gear from Linksys and others, Microsoft is risking disappointing consumers who might turn to them for a simpler process in configuring their systems. The Microsoft approach includes several options like auto-detecting settings for a user's ISP connection, but it's unclear whether that involves just running a utility on a user's machine that finds the settings and copies them to the wireless gateway. The initial gateway will be a four-port 10/100 Mbps switch and Wi-Fi access point, according to this report.
Vocera announces Wi-Fi-based communicator: Vocera announced at the DemoMobile conference today their Vocera Communications System which uses a small wearable communicator that connects over standard Wi-Fi networks to offer mobile workers voice-based intercom and telephony. The system relies in part on a voice-recognition system that lets people wearing these badges carry out tasks by speaking them, obviating the need for hands or an interface. The device has been beta tested with nurses where one nurse told the company they saved as much as an hour a day using the communicator, and the device is also expected to be a big winner in the retail environment. The company told me a few weeks ago about an aspect of their system which allows people to be grouped by function. A supervisor could say, "Find me the nearest cashier," and the system would use the group list and some proximity information from Wi-Fi access points to pick the likeliest person. More on Vocera next week.
Lucent successfully tests UMTS (3G) to Wi-Fi roaming: Spectacularly, this test not only showed how one could roam from a 3G network to a Wi-Fi network, but also demonstrated an implementation of Mobile IP, a long-awaited addition to IP networking that would allow a user to take their IP with them, more or less. Mobile IP has stalled in part because of the drive to put IPv6 into more devices. IPv6 contains essentially the ideas and substance of MobileIP in its spec. Once (or, perhaps "if ever") IPv6 is found in enough routers in the right places, you should be able to take your IP on the road.
Green Packets makes beta available of self-organizing network software: SONbuddy automatically seeks, organizes and maintains a peer-to-peer and peer-to-multi-peer, ad-hoc community based on user-defined preferred search parameters. Green Packets's software apparently allows mobile devices to create ad hoc networks, much like Bluetooth, but employing a more generic assumption of underlying infrastructure than Bluetooth's specific requirements. Green Packets uses self-healing routing technology. SONbuddy is available in beta form for Windows-based notebooks, desktops and PocketPC-based PDAs. Applications included with the system allow users to create profiles, seek out like-minded individuals (sounds very much like Telia's cell-phone service), use voice over IP, exchange files, instant message, form chat rooms, and share white boards.
Business Week on sustainability of free networks: A quite well-reasoned article about how free networks are working to sustain interest and viability. The writer hints at the end of the article that perhaps the poor economy is one reason why community networks have thrived: un- and underemployed technology enthusiasts deprived of 90-hour work weeks are building services on their own.
Intersil in full production of 802.11a chipset, $35 in quantity: Intersil has ramped up to full production for its set of chips that manfacturers can use to create 802.11a products. They also announced they will be sampling chips to OEMs soon for the Duette product, which will be 802.11a, b, and g compliant. The 802.11g standard is on track for May 2003 ratification, with various chipmakers proposing a late winter 2003 schedule for g-compliant chips. Ben Charny at News.com writes that Intersil's move might start a price war that could reduce the price of access points and client adapters for 802.11a quite rapidly.
Warchalking moves from idea to fad to movement to condemnation: Despite the fact that there is no warchalking movement -- it's a powerful meme, but not a grassroots or top-down organization, fer chrissakes -- Nokia apparently issued an advisory to its customers covered in this article. In part, the article quotes the advisory as saying, While the warchalkers maintain they are not trying to hack networks, they are using a resource which they haven't paid for. I know of zero evidence that warchalking is being employed exclusively or even largely for this purpose. The article also cites as a fact, not needing attribution, that spammers are "warspamming", even though the original appearance of both that idea and the "10 million" number quoted in this article was part of a speculative speech given, not research or real reports of activity.
Attend the upcoming O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference -- strong wireless focus: The Mac OS X Conference is a must-attend event for OS X administrators and developers, as well as extra-geeky end-users, and there's a strong thread of wireless networking running through the conference. It starts with my Monday morning 3 1/2 hour tutorial on wireless, tied into OS X aspects but also covering more general topics; then Rob Flickenger's community wireless tutorial that afternoon. Over the three days of the conference proper, wireless rears its head many times, in sessions on Rendezvous and networking. You can obtain a great discount on the event here.
Register now for 802.11 Planet in Santa Clara, CA, in early December: I'll be heading up a panel and attending. I went to last year's inaugural event in Santa Clara, and it was fantastic.
Rendezvous spreads: Apple's network discovery protocol for services like filesharing and printing continues to gain adherents. Their version of a zero-configuration protocol now has several more major adherents in addition to the original three (Epson, Lexmark, and HP): Xerox, Philips, Canon, Sybase, and... World Book? Ah, the product marks the first cool application-based benefit: sharing notes and research.
Infoworld rounds up DemoMobile's upcoming announcements: this week, companies show many new wireless products at the DemoMobile conference.
US government report on securing cyberspace mentions 802.11b: Report says options to secure Wi-Fi neworks should be better explained. Agreed! Out of the box, it's easy to secure Bluetooth, and HomeRF has strong encryption built right in with practically zero-user involvement. Wi-Fi makers can make consumer products easier to secure with a first line of defense. Hopefully, 802.11i remains on track.