Looks like CSIRO's legal days are over -- for the moment, at least. Having already reached an agreement with HP, the Australian government-funded research firm announced this week that it's settled with the remaining 13 companies it sued for patent infringement, claiming it owned the rights to 802.11a/g. For those who haven't been keeping track at home, that includes Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Nintendo, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Netgear, Buffalo, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, and 3Com. The details of any of the settlements are undisclosed, but as iTnews reports, it's expected CSIRO ended up with some substantial monies now that the dust has settled. Chief Executive Dr. Megan Clark noted that it'll continue to "defend its intellectual property," so if you're a high profile tech company who creates WiFi-equipped gadgets and hasn't been served a lawsuit yet, we don't blame you for being a little nervous right now.

Netgear didn't go for any fancy-schmancy new form factor with its 3G mobile broadband wireless router, instead opting for the standard shell we know and love. Nine different Sierra and Novatel 3G modems are currently supported, and just plugging one into the USB 2.0 slot will provide you web access via either ethernet LAN or 802.11g. Usual amenities like WEP / WPA encryption are here, and it includes both AC and 12V DC adapters. The router is due out this month for $130. Anyone up for a World of Warcraft campfire LAN party?

Read - List of supported 3G USB modems

It's taken well over a year for Eye-Fi to bring its self-titled wireless SD card to market, but on the plus side, that Benjamin now gets you 2GB of storage -- a welcome boost for a rumored capacity that had dipped as low as 512MB. In case the past 18 months have made the details a little fuzzy, this 802.11g card requires a one-time setup on your PC before it's ready to automatically upload full resolution pics to one of 17 websites each time you turn on your camera. Even better, a backup copy is also sent to your PC, ensuring that your photos are safely archived when your favorite social network folds.

Wireless adapters wasn't the only new gear Buffalo loosed today. Also hitting the streets are two new AirStation routers, one 802.11n (Wireless-N Nfiniti Router WZR2-G300N offers 802.11n), the other g (Wireless-G High Speed Router WHR-G125). Expect both units to have the usual Buffalo AOSSTM (and DS Lite support), a four port 10/100 switch (where the hell is the gigabit?), WPA2, NAT, SPI firewall, and all the rest of the usual router features that ring in on this gear. The price, however, is somewhat noteworthy: $100 for the n, and $50 for the g, both landing in May.

Sure, you can go pre-release 802.11n gear if you dare (read: stick with a single vendor). But if you're looking for the latest IEEE cred, then you're stuck with 802.11g for 54 Mbps (max) at distances of 150-feet or so. So check out Buffalo's latest USB adapters: the WLI-U2-G54HG (pictured, right) and WLI-U2-SG54HG -- sporting an extra "s" for suck. Let us explain. Both of these high-gain, 802.11g USB 2.0 WiFi adapters offer an impressive 1,600 feet of coverage. The G54HG does this via its directional antenna and signal strength indicator to dial in the maximum signal strength at those extended distances. The SG54HG on the other hand, packs an omni-directional antenna and a lovely pair of suction cups allowing you to lick'n stick the unit directly onto the backside of your laptop's LCD. Both products hit retail in May for about $49.

As we edge ever closer (right?) to finally seeing a finalized 802.11n protocol, companies are shoving (sometimes in secret) draft-spec 802.11n kit into their products to take advantage of the here and now. Taking yet another baby step towards the goal, Qualcomm is releasing a fourth-generation chipset, dubbed the AGN400, to take advantage of Draft 2.0 of the IEEE 802.11n standard. The chipset itself was crafted by Airgo, who just so happened to be acquired by dear Qualcomm in one fell swoop, and also features Airgo's True MIMO Gen-N technology. Although Airgo has had its quibbles with backwards compatibility in the past, this device will supposedly play nice with all previous 802.11s, including the earlier draft of 802.11n and the typical trio of 802.11a/b/g. Reportedly ready to fit a "full array" of interface buses for OEM products, this Draft 2.0-compliant chipset purportedly provides "significantly better performance, a greater feature set, and enhanced interoperability" over the previous rendition. While pricing details weren't discussed, it should be ready for the world to see by CES, while True MIMO Gen-N products should be available by "the first quarter of 2007."

[Via PhoneMag]

What's better than TRENDnet's pre-802.11n gear? How about an 802.11b/g-compliant device that you can actually rest assured works with basically every other piece of WiFi kit out there? The TEW-445UB is a 108Mbps-capable wireless USB 2.0 / 1.1 adapter which sports a fairly small 2.8- x 2.1- x 0.7-inch enclosure and plays nice with Windows only. Aside from supporting "Super G" technology and WEP / WPA encryption, it boasts a high power output for up to 23dBm of range, a detachable 2dBi antenna, and claims to cover "50 to 100" meters indoors while blanketing "150 to 300" meters outside. While nothing here is particularly revolutionary, the respectable $72 pricetag fits the package quite well, and it should be showing up in stores real soon.

Mvix has certainly found its way to your living room before, and we've heard the rumblings of its latest HD streaming / storage device coming to fruition, but just before the holiday rush the firm is officially releasing the MX-760HD Wireless HD Media Center. This feature-laden box supports wireless media (HD thankfully included) streaming over 802.11g with full WEP support, and comes packed with an optional 200 to 750GB hard drive to store files remotely. Sporting a 7.4- x 7.6- x 2.3-inch enclosure, the Linux-based box plays nice with Windows systems and outputs in NTSC / PAL, and even includes an external LCD to give you quick updates on what's going where. Aside from WiFi, it also features Ethernet connectivity and USB ports, and Mvix even includes a remote to control the action from afar. On the rear, you'll find outputs for DVI, component, composite, stereo, and optical / coaxial digital audio to play back any of your DivX, MPEG 1/2/4, WMV, ASF, DAT, DVD, IFO, VOB, ISO, MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, PCM, AC3, DTS, BMP, JPEG, and PNG files -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg. So if you're scouting a svelte HD streamer with internal storage to boot, the MX-760HD can be pre-ordered now (sans an internal HDD) for $329.

[Thanks, Chris and Rich]

Doing away with the generally well-regarded lifetime subscription was unfortunate albeit bearable, but now TiVo is really pressing its luck. Just in time for folks to slash that pricey Series3 off their holiday wishlist, the widely adored DVR company is not only upping its monthly service rates for new customers and those currently on prepaid plans, but also limiting WPA support to its own TiVo Wireless G Adapter. Just days after teasing high-rollers with its chromed-out $50 "premium remote," TiVo has announced that monthly rates are being raised to $19.95 per month for those in one-year commitments (up from $12.95 monthly), $14.95 per month if you're locked in for 24 months, and $12.95 monthly if you make the huge mistake of signing up for three solid years. For additional units in your crib, the extra $6.95 per month is now up to $13.95, $8.95, or $6.95 depending on your 1/2/3-year commitment. In a move to seemingly further limit your choices (and make things easier on its own tech support personnel), your only option for utilizing WPA on that Series2 / Series3 box is to fork out for TiVo's own 802.11g device. Apparently TiVo either thinks we're all made of money, or there's simply a lack of alternative DVR solutions waiting to take its place on your AV shelf -- both of which are probably incorrect assumptions.

Read - TiVo's wireless adaptor supports WPA [Via Zatz Not Funny]
Read - TiVo's new service rates

Not that a top-5-percenter like yourself really needs your gear to set itself up, but it's always a nicety to save yourself a few minutes doing the configuration dance when your device can do it for you. Hawking's new HNC290G Net-Vision 802.11g wireless camera does that whole UPnP thing to throw up its live 30fps video stream automagically, making it ever easier for you to surveil your abode (or, if need be, surveil someone else's). Expect to ring it up for $130 come August 4th.

Probably feeling left out now that all its competitors have released gear conforming to the troubled draft-802.11n WiFi standard, D-Link has finally entered the game with a pair of routers that promise increased range and throughput over traditional 802.11/a/b/g equipment while maintaining compatibility with previously deployed products. So far the reviews we've read about similar routers from Linksys, Buffalo, and Netgear have not been all that positive, so we're not expecting too much from the 3-antenna RangeBooster N 650 and 2-antenna Rangebooster N, although the fact that you can pick up the latter for under a hundred bucks may convince you to give it a try. Still, you're probably not gonna get anywhere near the bandwidth that D-Link promises, and with the controversy over 802.11n still raging on, you're probably better off with a MIMO-equipped 802.11g model instead.

Read- RangeBooster N 650
Read- RangeBooster N
[Via PCMag]

If Evesham's 19-inch Quest A630 gaming rig was just a little too much laptop for you, now the company has introduced another dual-core model that maintains the A630's SLI goodness but drops two inches off the screen -- and a full $1,300 off the pricetag. The new 17-inch Quest Nemesis features a Turion 64 processor from AMD, dual nVidia GeForce Go 7900 video cards, 1,680 x 1,050 WSXGA resolution, 160GB worth of 5400RPM SATA drives, and 1GB of rather pokey 333MHz DDR RAM, along with a DVD burner, 3-in-1 card reader, and Bluetooth and 802.11g radios. There's also a full suite of connectivity options, including FireWire, DVI, VGA, S-Video, S/PDIF, and 4 USB 2.0 ports, as well as an ExpressCard slot for eventually adding a wireless 3G modem. You can order the 8.8-pound Nemesis right away starting at $2,775, or wait around for the inevitable flood of identical rebadges that will probably drive the price down a bit.

[Via Pocket-Lint]

NeoDigits, who recently brought us that Helios HVD2085 upscaling DVD player, is back with another set of gear under the Helios brand also designed to help you get the most out of your HDTV. Like models we've already seen from SnaZio and Aircord, the upcoming 1080p-capable X3000 and X5000 HD network media players are able to stream a slew of formats from PC to TV, including MPEG-1/2/4, DivX and DivX HD, XviD HD, WMV 9/HD, WMA, MP3, AAC, Ogg, JPEG, PNG, and BMP -- and just in case those aren't enough to satisfy your media jones, you also get an upconverting DVD drive capable of reading both DVD+R and DVD-R discs along with MP3 CDs. Connectivity to your PC comes via the Ethernet port or built-in 802.11g, and you can hook up your home theater gear using HDMI, DVI, component, S-video, or composite video outputs along with analog, optical, or digital coax audio jacks. Available this month, the X3000 will go for $400 while the X5000 (pictured), which throws in a Burr-Brown low-noise Op Amp, 24bit Wolfson DAC, gold-plated RCA jacks, and a few other enhancements, will be priced at $600.

Certainly not the the first solution for streaming HD programming around your house, a new product called the AircordAV promises to dumb down the whole process into what would appear to be a 5-minute-install, and supports that sweet 1,080p resolution to boot. Instead of asking your existing router to do all the hard work, AircordAV comes with a base unit that hooks up to any of your home theater gear using HDMI, DVI, component, S-video, composite, or SCART connections, and creates its own 802.11g network with up to eight clients feeding any or all of your video displays. Aircord claims the product is capable of lossless streaming, and uses a proprietary technology to encode and decode your video signals, although the company's lack of a website or actual product shots makes us a bit wary of the whole thing. We'll find out in December if this clever idea can be turned into a working device -- that's when the AircordAV will supposedly be released -- and if it can, expect to cough up at least $500 to start cutting those cords.

With the "Origami lifestyle" being portrayed as so fun and carefree, we were surprised to see that UMPCs will also be tasked with the decidedly less fun-filled duty of helping soldiers locate and terminate their targets. The latest high-tech addition to the military's mobile arsenal is a pocketable 1.4GHz Pentium M-powered tablet from General Micro Systems known as the P630 Spartan, whose half-inch-thick ruggedized case houses 2GB of DDR SDRAM, a 30GB hard drive, 64MB of dedicated VRAM for OpenGL and Direct-X support, and an optional 16GB of bootable flash memory. You also get a CF slot, optional 802.11g or Bluetooth, USB and FireWire ports, and E-Purge hard drive self-destruct utility for your $3,400, although that price is for 100 of the devices, so we're not sure if they'll even be willing to sell just a couple to your militia group.