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Go Fast With Wireless 1394 77

Posted by timothy from the when-I-was-a-boy-we-didn't-have-"hands" dept.
Midnight Thunder writes: "According to an article at Firewireworld NEC has developed the first wireless form of Firewire (aka IEEE 1394). Just imagine no cables between your computer and your external hard drive." Or more fun, an ultra-fast AAN (Apartment-Area Network), so you can just trade hard drive contents all day.
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Go Fast With Wireless 1394 More

Go Fast With Wireless 1394

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  • For many machine-rooms, 12 metres would be fully sufficient. Just imagine getting away from some of the cables in the storage-arrays (hooray!)

    Oh, and FireWire is mostly used for digital videocameras, cd-recorders and other stuff that you don't need to have connected to your computer most of the time. Not having to go look for some connector you put somewhere everytime you want to transfer something from your digicam to your computer will likely be regarded as something wonderful by most people.

    About the size: as long as people are perfectly happy with buying FireWire as add-ons to their computers, I can't see why it'd matter much. And there are (to my knowledge) no FireWire-capable palmtops yet. But I'm pretty convinced that smaller chipsets will developed pretty fast if needed. If for no other reason, Apple will probably want such for their next generation of PowerBooks.

  • swimming in EM (Score:5)

    by mr ( 88570 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @09:11AM (#387392)
    Wasn't all the rage 5 months ago stories about how cell phones might cause cancer, tumors etc?

    And one month ago, all the rage was stories about reducing the electrical power consumption?

    As always, prifacy is a hot-button topic.

    So, here we have a technology that increases the EM you are in, uses more power ( a waveguide (ie copper or glass) is always the prefered way to transmit information), AND broadcasts to every tom, dick and larry. And this is a GOOD thing because you have one less wire to manage?

    Wow....you must all have very busy lifes that you can't fit wire placement into it, yet find time to worry about privacy/energy use/health concerns about EM.

  • Quite true... and it probably is, but they're obviously keeping some headroom in the standard for future versions.

    Also it's the old situation where something is technically possible, however it would be too expensive to produce on scale at the moment, and the fact it would cannibalize your upgrade revenue.

    802.11b is actually capable of 22mbps with an enhanced encoding scheme, it still uses the current 2.4ghz spectrum and with the same powerlevels. Watch out for 802.11g [cnet.com] later on this year for 22mbps over 2.4ghz.

    After that comes 802.11a and HyperLAN2 (a similar European spec, but with adaptive frequencies and QoS).
  • The first paragraph of the article reads:

    The company has achecived full FireWire/1394 speeds of 400 Mpbs up to 12 meters away with line of site connectivity, and 100 Mbs through 7 meters of interior walls.

    Q. Can you find the two spelling mistakes (answers below)

    A. Achecived and 'line of site'

  • How much bandwith does a digital Monitor (e.g. a TMDS link) consume? There would be only powercables left....
  • I'm not bying my wearable PC until they come out with wireless power supplies...

  • Heck, you know what also would be as neat as hell? Only having to put the various home theather/stereo components like the DVD player, speakers, TV, TiVo, game system, cable/satellite reciever and whatever else you want in vague proximity to each other. The only thing that would have to come out of them would be the power wires. The wireless IEEE 1394 network would figure every thing out on its own. It is a true shame though that something like this is years away even though it is technically possible.
  • Just imagine no cables between your computer and your external hard drive

    Just imagined it. Wasn't too thrilling though.
    --
  • Size will gauge how versitle it is but think about it, wireless 400MB,

    Put up a few repeaters in an office and a nice encryption protocol. I'd kill for my laptop to finish syncing by the time i got to my desk.

    If they were small and power cheap enough, digital cameras, video senders, surviellance systems. anything that has an IR port would rock if they could fit this in it.

    I just wanna admin from a bench overlooking the harbor across the street is that too much to ask?

  • The success of a bus technology depends on much more than the ability to move bits from point A to point B at a certain bitrate, either wirelessly or not.

    It depends on the pricing, simplicity, application support model, ease of use, drivers, targeted applications, competition versus cooperations and other company interests, clever marketing and gathering industry momentum. Anyone here on slashdot can probably recite a list of cases where an inferior technology caught on while the better technology didn't make it.

    Bluetooth is also coming from an industry with a VASTLY different corporate culture than the industry 1394 is coming from. Never underestimate the effects of corporate culture. Just think of what's happening between the Linux vs. the BSD camps - and they are much closer to each other than the cellular industry centered mostly in northern europe and the consumer electronics centered mostly in Japan.

    -

  • Do you monkey-porn [cc.az.us] lovers really want your neighbors to have even the slightest chance of seeing what you keep on your hard drive?

    30 GB of "Shopping the web for goat.cx [altavista.com]" and you'd be lucky if they didn't weld your front door shut, with you trapped inside [ivcc.edu]...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Wireless networking is already out.. but it's so expensive that I've never really given it much consideration.

    Sounds wonderful and nifty but if it costs me $500 to hook up my three home computers, then thanks but no thanks I'll stick with good ol' cheap cables.

    <texan>Heck, I ain't even done bought me a wireless mouse yet, what with all them batteries and all that I'd have to be worryin about! Plus, I hear tell that the GOVERNMENT listens in on your mouse movements and can tell what you're doing!!!</texan>

  • If I wanted your data and I was only 7m away, I would pick up your machine and take it away. This way I not only have your data, I'd have another box to add to the collection. I am sure that access lists and the like will eventuate with the technology.
  • To make a brash assumption: echo supression is built in. Which infers to some form of correction occurring in the wireless hardware.
  • first of all, the FBI'd have to be pretty damn close to monitor these things given the distances involved. but more to the point, this is just transport medium. what you put over it is up to you. as, for that mater, is whether to even use it or not. if you're uncomfortable with having your hard drive contents travel raw over the air, encrypt them. if the latency increase bothers you (which would likely be quite small, given good techniques), than just don't use the technology. the availability of this technology doesn't automatically make things less secure for you.
  • Remember, firewire is not 400MBYTES a second, but 400MBITS a second. This is about ~40MBYTE/S. Which is still as fast as UltraWide SCSI. While this is not slow, it is not the lightening fast solution it's made out to be.

  • Scary (Score:1)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 )

    At least with wireless LANs, all the networking stuff is written with the assumption that there may be hostile parties intercepting and spoofing packets. I'm pretty damn sure I haven't seen those issues addressed in any block device driver code, though.


    ---
  • Actually, Apple's new G4 powerbook must have a pretty small setup already... the motherboard is only about 11"x7", complete with a modem/ethernet/2xUSB/FireWire/Audio/VGA/S-video/PC MCIA and your standard stuff (processor, memory sockets etc...)

  • This [firewireworld.com] article is from Feb 2001.

    For more on Wireless Firewire, search "wireless" from the group's homepage. Always moving forward, basically.

  • The advantage Bluetooth has is that the chipset is extremely small, already here and extremely cheap. I doubt that the FireWire-chipset will be as cheap. But I'd be happy if it was, of course.

  • Yes, the TiBook is an impressive piece of hardware ((Btw, it has a PC-Card controller, not a PCMCIA-controller. But that's a minor nitpick), but 11'x7' (whatever that is in metric measurements), is pretty big if you want to squeeze it into a palmtop, where you want most/all functions in a single chip (I/O-controller, MMU, etc.)

  • Here is more info that is more current:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.dialele ct ronics.com.au/articles/2a/0c00122a.asp+nec+wireles s+1394&hl=en
  • &nbsp&nbspIt is my understanding that today's 1394 connections do not check to see if the data that was sent actually got to it's destination, meaning no built in error-correction. The thinking behind this was that if 1394 was targeted for high speed audio and video, then there was no need for error correction in the specification.

    &nbsp&nbspMy question is, if this technology is used for wireless LANs and such, how can a person tell that thier data was not corrupted by, say, a lightning strike (don't know if that would affect the 60Ghz range but anyway).

    &nbsp&nbspOr has this been implemented in the new wireless specification?
    thanks
  • Radio frequencies do not have a wavelength capable of damaging the human body. Does light damage your body?? NO! UV does, but that is not light. If you look on an EM spectrum chart you will see that the wavelength is way too large to cause any damage. Maybe long term damage would be a possibility but powerlines and smog, and everything else is probably worse.
  • The article [firewireworld.com] mentioned above talks about simply using the IE1394 protocol, bridged over 802.11b wireless systems made by Intel. (look towards the bottom and read the "this is how it works:" section.) So essentially, the 1394 bus bandwidth is restricted by the 802.11b system's maximum bandwidth of 11Mbps, if I am reading it all correctly

    While this is the first step in a "proof-of-concept" attempt, it doesn't make me sure that the high-bandwidth expected from wireless 1394 will be a reality.

    Anyone else notice this, or am I mistaken in my reading of the article?

    -inco

  • AAN of course not, that afterall could possibly be used for the pirating of IP. So Jack Valenti says fuck you and the computer you rode in on.
  • Yeah, 802.11a [ieee.org] works at ~ 5.4ghz and is capable of upto 54mbps, HyperLAN2 [hyperlan2.com] also has similar speeds and works at 5ghz, both use OFDM [ofdm-forum.com] radio encoding, however the MAC layer differs between the standards.
  • assuming a lackluster 1024x768x24bpp @ 70 Hz, the math says:

    1024 px * 768 px * 24 bpp * 70 fps = 1321205760 bps = 1321 Mbps

    iee 1394 isn't quite there yet. 1600x1200x24bpp @ 70 Hz takes almost 2.5 times that.

  • Sorry, I meant CardBus, not PC-Cards. CardBus == busmastering-able 32-bit PC-Cards, whereas PCMCIA == non-busmastering-able 16-bit PC-Cards. Once again, sorry.

  • Lets clear this up©©© (Score:3)

    by __aakpxi9117 ( 248760 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @02:21PM (#387421) Journal
    Okay, so they made 'firewire'-wireless© Wouldn't that mean they have just developed 'fire' ? Inquiring minds want to know!


  • If I wanted your data and I was only 7m away, I would pick up your machine and take it away.

    And then when I walked in and found some hanging cables where my desktop box used to be, I would know that my data had been compromised.

    If you simply sit in the next room and tap, then I'll never know that you've got my illegal collection of Dutch Apple Pie recipies.

    (But yes, I too would expect that the security would improve in time. But I expect it to happen only after the first major corporate data heist happens due to an incompetent implementation of Microsoft Active Remote Drive Wireless X Explorer Internet Protocol. (Did I leave out any buzzwords there? :-) Call me a pessimist.)

  • 400 Mbps is 50 MBps. This may be slower than Ultra-2 SCSI, but it's also much easier to setup and configure, and you can daisy-chain a lot more devices via 1394. The fun part will be figuring out how to daisy-chain wireless devices.

    P_R
  • I just have to say that I find it hilarious when appliances talk to each other, in perfect english.

    The video recorder knows its a video recorded, and when hooked by IEE 1394 to an audio amplifier says "hey I can send audio data to you, I'm a video recorder." The amplifier replies "I am an audio amplifier. Only send me this kind of audio data, not video."

    Yet its kinda scary when they become self aware.... and then start making demands!

  • I am glad it amuses you. Amusing you was my goal. :)

    On the other hand most sensible people would probably realize that perfect English is not how any device communicates with other devices, and the whole humor thing would have missed them. How sad. :)

  • I agree with you fully here. I enjoy toying with the idea that some administraors are so worried about security when a half brick and a pair of sneakers is sometimess all that is required to obtain data and the system required to extract the data.

    Hmmm, you have some good Dutch Apple Pie Recipies. I've only had Dutch 'flavoured' cookies in my time.

  • bruno. too much is not enough.

  • Short range (Score:4)

    by zaius ( 147422 ) <jeff@zaius.dyndns . o rg> on Saturday March 03, 2001 @08:27AM (#387428)
    From the article:

    The company has achecived full FireWire/1394 speeds of 400 Mpbs up to 12 meters away with line of site connectivity, and 100 Mbs through 7 meters of interior walls.

    For those of you who are metric-deficient, 12 meters is about 40', and 7 is about 23', neither of which are great distances.

    We won't really be able to tell how useful this is until we get a better idea of the size... if you could fit it in a palm pilot that'd be cool but if it takes a full PCI card that's less useful.

  • wireless RAID 0 for an entire dorm building. Just think of the possibilites!
    - daniel
  • Just what we need, another way for people to get into our computers. Doesn't the FBI already watch what's on peoples' monitors from vans on the street? If we have our hard drives open for all, count on someone trying to fake a signal to talk to the drive. If the signal is encrypted, that means at some point the signal must be decrypted. That means more latency and slower overall times.

  • One step closer... (Score:3)

    by TheOutlawTorn ( 192318 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @08:30AM (#387431)
    ...to making truely wearable computers a reality. Just think, no messy wires to get snagged on stuff when you're walking down the street. Sweet!

    Now I just need a mobile broadband satelite uplink.
  • maybe with this, ieee 1394 will actually take off like it's been trying to for so long. not many users have use for it when they don't have DV equipment or expensive external drives. but wireless networking might just be the key to firewire's acceptance in the PC market.

    -

  • Neat! Easier camera use. (Score:3)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @08:33AM (#387433) Homepage
    With this, I should be able to just put my camera on the table next to my PC, and copy the video over. Or, with a digital video system in my living room, just sit the camera near the VCR/DVD recorder/HDTV/etc, and play/duplicate/etc. the footage.

    - - - - -

  • YUCK (Score:2)

    by devphil ( 51341 )
    Just imagine no cables between your computer and your external hard drive.

    I am. And I'm imagining how much fun it could be to eavesdrop on disk reads through "7 meters of internal walls."

    You may mod me down now.

  • Great. And if one person's hard drive dies, you've lost everyone's data. I think raid 0/1 would be a bit more practical.
  • I'll believe it when I see it. This seems really cool but it has all the markings of a technology that is going to go noplace. 20 companies will come out with different flavors and none will work together. Kind of like the current state of digital cameras. The memory stick is cool - it's a convenient form factor, has a nice protective case and can hold like 128MB of data but nobody but Sony uses it.
  • Just imagine no cables between your computer and your external hard drive." .

    are you forgeting the kind of error generated with wireless communication and especially when the transimission power is so low..
  • Think about if everyone starts to use this thing. In a dorm or a big office building, sharing files will be so easy (not to mention portability). It will probably be a mini-Napster like environment.
  • Yeah... but you have to remember Firewire was limited to 4.5m through the original copper cables anyway, so it's actually a decent distance.

    It's basically a high bandwidth PAN like Bluetooth, but obviously the datarate is far greater. 12m is enough for to link a VCR or DVD to a TV, and it's far enough to link your CamCorder up without bothering without cables. You could plug in a DVD player with only the need for a powercord.

    You have to remember the standard probably goes farther distances at lower datarates.
  • Soudns great for the apartment complex, just think, all you need is the controller, you can use everyone elses's drive for storage. Just the way to store all that illegal porn so if the police arrives your machine is clean, as its on someone elses drive ;)
  • Yes... not only in size, but in power, at 400mbps with complex encoding schemes it will eat up quite a bit of power, and the radio's will not be cheap.

    I doubt we'll see it in palm top's anytime soon (apart from expensive addon's), Bluetooth is destined for this market because it's cheap to produce and is power efficient, but obviously limited to 1mbps.
  • A bit off subject, but I was caught off-guard by "AAN" (Apartment Area Network). A cool TLA, but I've never heard it used before. Did some quick digging and...

    - Jargon File [tuxedo.org] (aka: the "Hacker's Dictionary") contains no entry
    - dictionary.com [dictionary.com] contains no entry
    - www.everything2.com [everything2.com] contains only, "Airport code for Al Ain, United Arab Emirates"

    What is the moral of this story? I need to get a life and stop reading slashdot on Saturday nights. =>
  • Whjat does this mean for Bluetooth? I would think that having wireless FireWire would eliminate the need for bluetooth. But then Bluetooth has some serious backing, like Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, etc. But then Sony, Apple, etc are supporting FireWire....I just hope this doesn't lead to another VHS vs BetaMax war.

  • Isn't 802.11a the one with 54mbps over a 5 or 10ghz link?
    -since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
  • "What have you guys done since college?", homer "Well I made a program that can download porn a million times faster!", nerd #1 :D --Joey
  • So is "firewire", without the wires, just "fire"?

    ===
  • Maybe they are just typos, like Mpbs. Just let it go, no one wants to read about spelling mistakes, OK?
  • Soudns great for the apartment complex.... Just the way to store all that illegal porn so if the police arrives your machine is clean, as its on someone elses drive

    Isn't that the reason you should use either the RubberHose [rubberhose.org] filesystem or the StegFS [cam.ac.uk] filesystem?
  • this will be so cool. to be able to have firewire tech with networking will actualy bring great transfer rates since every device gets its own bandwidth assigned to it and does not share it with the other computers.

    If you had 4 computers on a 1394 network then each would get 100 Mbps transfer rates! cool
  • Hmmm...now we just need a few tesla coils and we can even do away with the power cables :)

    --Dox
  • Hmm, maybe it would be called Wildfire. Those guys in marketing would that.
  • A vast improvement there. No longer just noise from the speakers but all over an encrypted file.

    Progress is such a wonderous thing.

  • Goodbye Bluetooth ? (Score:4)

    by michael.creasy ( 101034 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @08:39AM (#387453) Homepage
    If they can actually ship some products using the technology then I can see this replacing Bluetooth before it even got started. I think I've seen a totally of three Bluetooth products, none of which were particulary appealing, for example I can move that radiation spewing phone from next to my head and replace it with a radiation spewing headset and this will only cost me more than the phone originally cost ? Excuse me if I don't queue up for it. I'd like to see Wireless Firewire replace all cables in the computer industry, no more cables in the case, in fact why even bother with a case anymore ?
  • Whoaaa! Imagine how much we will save on Firewire cables...

  • The wrong idea.... (Score:3)

    by grape jelly ( 193168 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @08:40AM (#387455)
    These guys have it all wrong. Wireless hard drives may be cool and all, but I think that this has greater implications for wireless ethernet as well as FireWire/USB-like devices. Imagine being able to take your laptop into your room and suddenly have a 400Mb/sec connection to the rest of your LAN (assuming you have gigabit, but even if you only have 100BT, it's still better than 11Mb/sec IEEE 802.11). Or, with the external devices, imagine setting your digial camera down on your desk and starting the image transfer without having to mess around with a cable. This would significantly reduce the amount of wire mess around your computers as well as significantly improve "ease of use".
  • This article is dated Jan 27, 2000!!!

    I hadn't heard this news before, so I'm not complaining that it's stale. I am, however, wondering what's happened since.

    The article says NEC expected to ship product by the end of 2000. Did that happen???

  • Maybe the future version of Napster is just doing

    find /mnt/aan -name "*GreenDay*mp3"

    where /mnt/aan is the root of your Apartment Area network.

  • Is this going to be another WEP [slashdot.org] that we can all rush to deploy and then get caught with our pants down around our ankles?

    While having a 400 Mbps wireless bus available to every device in my home would be nice, I'll wait for the evaluation from the security community before I brand wireless FireWire the Next Big Thing.

    As I recall the whole idea behind FireWire is the ability for the end user to easily integrate greatly-varied appliances in a seamless network. The video recorder knows its a video recorded, and when hooked by IEE 1394 to an audio amplifier says "hey I can send audio data to you, I'm a video recorder." The amplifier replies "I am an audio amplifier. Only send me this kind of audio data, not video." No more multiple s-vhs/RCA/component/right/left/middle/VGA cables intertwined behind the entertainment center. Everything's in one thin cable, and any enabled device that is hooked into this network identifies itself and integrates seamlessly.

    Do I really want Windows XP via wireless FireWire to serve out my recorded HDTV programming, music files, and Office XP spreadsheets to my neighbor, who lives less than ten meters to the north of my PC?

    Uh ... No ...

  • In any kind of network, you must have some kind of equivalent of an "IP Address".

    On some networks, such as AppleTalk, a device with very little smarts, or if you find your address is in use, or if you are unable to cache your address until next time -- you can dynamically acquire a new address. This is not done via. any kind of centralized server like dhcp.

    Now, combine these two thoughts. Suppose in an apartment building, or dormitory, that everyone can anonymously share files via. a limited range wireless protocol -- and you dynamically acquire your address every time.

    Wouldn't this make it pretty damned difficult to prosecute?
  • I don't think this type of system is likely to hit the market in a consumer version any time soon. The process technology that can hit 60GHz is much more expensive than the standard CMOS technology that is being employed in Bluetooth, and some 802.11 (not 802.11b yet) radios, so the costs of a chipset are likely to be in the hundreds of dollars as opposed to the 20-40$ range for 802.11b or the targeted 5$ for Bluetooth in volume. Which means that your Firewireless link will likely cost a couple grand at first. I would expect technology of this nature to drop over the next couple of years, especially as things such as SiGE chipsets, which can approach 30-40GHz drop in price. Perhaps we will see a 100Mbps firewire bridge at a reasonable price, and then 4 and 800 Mbps bridges later, especially as people get more advanced in how they handle high speed radio technology (there are some really cool advances that may help, such as software radios, and direct conversion chipsets). Anyway, I wouldn't hold my breath for this. Just because it has been demonstrated doesn't mean that it is manufacturable. The other announcement for a Firewire bridge on that site was for using 802.11b radios at 11MBps. If they stepped that up to 802.11a radios, then you could get 50Mbps at distances similar to the stuff NEC did a year ago with a (US) standards compliant device. Robert
  • From wireless firewire article:
    To do this, the new technology uses 60GHz millimeter wavelength transmissions

    From CNN article on non-lethal "pain beam" [cnn.com]:

    The weapon is designed to stop people by firing millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy

    I've gotta wonder ... will future camcorders w/ wireless 1394 include "built-in handwarmer" as a product feature??

  • Re:Article is from Jan. 2000!!! (Score:5)

    by Zeus305 ( 104737 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @10:51AM (#387462)

    I have been following this for a year or so now so this is basically what I've discovered: the answer is that little has happened in terms of a marketable product with wireless IEEE 1394. Several companies besides NEC including Zayante [zayante.com] and Philips Semiconductor [philips.com] have been researching this recently. In addition, the 1394 Trade Association [1394ta.org] (over 100 powerful companies like Intel, TI, NEC, Phillips) has announced the formation of a group to promote wireless interconnectivity between the IEEE1394 wired domains and wireless domains for computer and consumer electronics equipment. I think it is only a matter of time before some products appear. A quick search of Firewire World [firewireworld.com] reveals the following up-to-date articles on wireless IEEE 1394:

  • A list of good and bad: (Score:5)

    by brianvan ( 42539 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @11:05AM (#387463)
    Good ideas here:

    * Wireless Firewire - can mean wireless SCSI, networking, hard drive interfaces, scanners, printers, terminals, hi-fi speakers, personal electronic devices, etc. The key is that it'll support a lot of stuff altogether, and it can be the unifying wireless standard for any kind of data transfer.
    * Blazing fast transfers without stuffing Ethernet cords under doorways and around ceilings.
    * Wireless Hot Plug-n-play. Now Grandma will be teaching YOU how to install a hard drive.
    * Goes through walls. I can see it now... a small, hidden camera mounted on an office wall, and on the other side of the wall, a huge 7 foot tall plasma display showing what's going on in the room next door. One-sided mirrors are obsolete.
    * Now you don't have to get up to walk down the hall to get your co-worker's new Linux distro CD - it's faster to just hit a button.
    * Church will teach that two things are omnipresent: God, and Napster.
    * In 50 years, the Re-Commuting revolution: people get sick and tired of working in their pajamas at home with the kids, so they demand to go back to the office, wait in traffic every morning, dress in suits every day, and stare the boss in the eye when he says something like "This Firewire router isn't wireless... I have to plug in this power cord!"
    * Sneaky hackers send pirate Firewire signals to Bill Gates' toaster, making him start off every day on the wrong foot when he burns his toaster strudel.
    * Combine Wireless Firewire, IPV6 Multicasting, and Jenna Jameson. You may never leave your bedroom again.

    Bad things:

    * If you think too many of us are lazy, nerdy, and obese NOW...
    * Movie theaters, restaurants, and other public places become highly annoying when all you hear is "File's Done!" from everyone's Palm Pilots.
    * Privacy becomes a non-option. Hackers know everything you type, everything you download, and every web site you visit. Blackmail becomes the world's most profitable organized crime business - people get frustrated to the point where they'd rather be murdered.
    * Randomly inserted 30-second commercials in EVERYTHING. That digital picture frame of Aunt Mabel on your desk becomes a Preparation-H advertisement 3 times a day.
    * Doctors increase the average lifespan from 40 to 70 magically with new subcutaneous electromagnetic shielding. But then your cellular head-implant telepathic device stops working when you turn your head a certain way.
    * Cmdr Taco enjoys your porn folder so much that it becomes Link-of-The-Day. Your hard drive burns your house down, kills your two dogs, and half the Tri-State region is Slashdotted. You cry on the curb about your lost porn folder.
    * Larry Ellison's Network Computer predictions come true. But he still won't shut up.
    * You know those annoying songs that you can't get out of your head? The RIAA does that quite literally down the line.
    * The next World War foregoes traditional weapons for psychological warfare - Allied forces clog the spectrum with Vanilla Ice songs, and Axis powers transmit episodes of "Full House".
    * Finally, you can't get into the hot New York clubs with overclocked pants anymore. It's their way of weeding out the undesirables.

  • The bottom line. (Score:3)

    by PhatKat ( 78180 ) on Saturday March 03, 2001 @08:45AM (#387464) Homepage
    Hey guys, here I am, posting back at the Dot. I hate to always have to be the boring guy, but somone has to steer the conversation back to the bottom line. With all this fancy technology, someone has to keep the thread focused. Someone has to stop and take a good hard look at new technologies like these and see what they really offer.

    Sure, we all want faster connections. We all want to be able to stay in touch with our co-workers, we all want to make e-business ran faster and more smoothly. You and I both wish we had unlimited bandwidth available to wistfully wile away the hours sending faxes and Excel spreadsheets. I know how addictive hard work can be. I too remember that first time I sent a memo through my corporate network, the giddy high it left me with. I remember the hot rush of blood in my face and the tingle in the hairs on the back of my neck as as I did something sinful, something dirty. I too am guilty. But we've got to ask ourselves, will this new technology really deliver? When it comes down to it, the question begs to be asked:

    Will this new technology revolutionize how I download pornography?

    I'm sorry to have to be the one to bring up the hard questions, but as we know, Slashdot is about the facts. It's about responsible journalism. This is not the time to loose sight of that mission. If we all work together, even the really tough topics, like porn, video games, and pirated music can be discussed in an environment conducive to interesting, insightful, and informative discussion.

    Good luck, and be strong. We can make a difference.
  • Ok, 400Mbps is 50MB/sec. I don't know if that's supposed to include protocol overhead. Does anybody know how close to that these interfaces would actually get? I haven't personally seem hdparm report more than just under 20MB/sec (I know, I should get an ATA100 card and proper cables) and anything close to 50MB/sec without wires just sounds too good to be true.
    --

  • Some FireWire Links (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FireWire Stuff [firewirestuff.com]

    FireWire Direct [firewiredirect.com]

    Google FireWire [google.com]
  • ...up to 12 meters away with line of site connectivity...

    Enough to make Cmdrtaco proud!

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