DisplayLink cuts your monitor's cord, utilizes wireless USB

Sure, wireless USB hubs for your mice, keyboards, printers, and other random peripherals are quite handy in removing that rat's nest of wires you're currently dealing with, but now it seems the "wire free PC" is within our grasp. DisplayLink's DL-120 and DL-160 ICs allow "monitor manufacturers, PC OEMs and PC accessory companies to develop products for multi-monitor computing including USB-connected monitors, video-enabled USB laptop docks, and a host of other goodies for the cordless monitor. These USB chips are the "world's first" to offer VGA over a USB 2.0 connection, and there's reportedly no loss in quality or lag incurred when watching films or performing other fast-moving tasks, but that's a claim we'd have to see to truly believe. The DL-120 supports resolutions up to 1,280 x 1,024, while the more robust DL-160 kicks it all the way up to 1,600 x 1,200. Notably, DisplayLink mentions that these chips could not only be used in LCD monitors, but in digiframes as well, potentially giving users the ability to beam new galleries over wireless USB. While both ICs are current "available in production," we've no idea how much the firm plans on charging folks to integrate the wireless goods into their monitors, but at least the countdown to a cable-less PC (and some real-world wireless USB applications) has begun -- now we're just waiting for a few hundred watts to be channeled sans cabling.

[Via EverythingUSB]

[akijikan @ Jan 15th 2007 9:04AM]

How about transmitters you can plug in to both ends and make VGA connection wireless?

[rockintom @ Jan 15th 2007 9:04AM]

Tesla Coil, maybe?

[tk. @ Jan 15th 2007 9:32AM]

Big deal. We did this kind of stuff in college, over 5 years ago.

Wooo way to catch up to old technology!

[Matt Peckham @ Jan 15th 2007 9:47AM]

I am waiting for the laptop-wannabe monitor and keyboard in 1. So you can surf wirelessly using the power of the PC, but without the weight and heat of a laptop. Dock it to charge, and it's your monitor and keyboard.

[Kichigai Mentat @ Jan 15th 2007 12:06PM]

lawl. Weight and heat of a laptop? Apparently you've never seen some of the newer laptops. Don't get me wrong, I totally see where you're coming from, but while there are a couple small, light laptops (MacBooks, smaller Viaos), there's a good number that kick out a ton of heat (older MacBook Pros, a mid-ranged Toshiba) and have bone crushing weight (HP's 17-inch laptop, Dell's 19-inch XPS). Fortunately, sizes and weights run the gamut in this day and age.

Anyway, you can already do what you want. Just use VNC. It's not good enough for gaming or video watching, but you can still do all your work on it, and over the internet too, no less.

[jon @ Jan 16th 2007 8:52AM]

"I am waiting for the laptop-wannabe monitor and keyboard in 1. So you can surf wirelessly using the power of the PC, but without the weight and heat of a laptop. Dock it to charge, and it's your monitor and keyboard."

This was done about 5 years ago or more called "Smart Displays" based on WinCE. Philips had the DesXcape (ebay and tigerdirect had them for $700) that was exactly what you describe separate keyboard and monitor that could be used on a dock as a primary or secondary monitor (limitations were it was RDP dependent and couldn't stream video since RDP lacks decent video capabilities). Viewsonic still has them for sale. only keyboard is onscreen. It was a flop... too expensive. Reviewers said you could buy a laptop for a bit more that did more. But those that actually used it said that once it was setup it was a great experience of being able to not be tied to a desktop or laptop to surf the web, email, write documents (touchscreen). DesXcape was available only in 802.11B , however, viewsonics come in A/B/G models.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/smartdisplay/default.mspx

Definitely something that WILL make a comeback due to home automation in the future and hopefully with better specs.

[havranek @ Jan 15th 2007 10:16AM]

How it's possible to transmit this amount of information over USB 2.0???

1280 x 1024 x 32bits x 60Hz = 2516582400 bits/second or 2.4 Gbit/s

USB 2.0 are not only capable to transmit 400 Mbit/s???

Something is not clear on this technology...

[azz0r @ Jan 15th 2007 10:38AM]

How does it get the power?

Surely electricity can't be transmitted wirelessly!

[Preston Wily @ Jan 15th 2007 11:03AM]

Sorry but their claim that this is the first VGA over USB 2.0 simply isn't true. This product has been out for 2 years now:

http://sewelldirect.com/usb2tosvga.asp

[Aldeeb @ Jan 15th 2007 11:16AM]

sounds like someone's gonna come up with a wireless USB monitor scanner hack . .

[macona @ Jan 15th 2007 1:07PM]

Preston, I think that should of read "These USB chips are the "world's first" to offer VGA over a WIRELESS USB 2.0 connection"

[Joaquim @ Jan 15th 2007 2:42PM]

> 1280 x 1024 x 32bits x 60Hz = 2516582400 bits/second or 2.4 Gbit/s

It actually only says "Up to 32-bit color" on their website, although they do claim to support "2.0 megapixel" displays, which is 2Mpx x 8bits x 60Hz = 960 Mbps at the very least.

However, they do boast another feature, called "DisplayLink lossless decompression engine", which would indicate guaranteed lag as the system continuously compresses & decompresses the signal.

My guess, fwiw: No 32-bit colour support for higher resolutions, and the lag is clearly noticeable for gaming.

[Robert @ Jan 15th 2007 5:01PM]

And what are you left with, a power cable just like my iMac....