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WiFi spec update promises to double your wireless speeds
You might not have to wait until 802.11ad arrives in earnest to get a big boost in WiFi network speeds. The Wi-Fi Alliance has officially debuted the 802.11ac wave 2 standard, which promises a big leap in speed without reinventing the wheel. It doubles the bandwidth per channel, which could double your performance in good conditions. You're more likely to hit those speeds, too. There's an additional spatial stream and wider 5GHz channel support, and MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple input multiple output) lets routers send data to multiple devices at the same time -- you're less likely to see your download bog down because someone else in your home is streaming video.
Samsung Wave II has its Super Clear LCD tested against Galaxy S Super AMOLED display
Well, "tested" might be a strong word, but the living legend that is Eldar Murtazin has squared up Samsung's latest Bada handset against the company's top of the line Galaxy S for a bit of side-by-side screen comparison action. The 3.7-inch display on the Wave II holds its own admirably against the hyper-advanced Super AMOLED panel alongside it, but it does seem to have a tendency to introduce a slight yellow hue into images, as illustrated above. Regrettably, the Russian weather wasn't conducive to doing any comparisons under sunlight, so we'll just have to content ourselves with even more pictures setting the Wave II up against Nokia's N8 and Samsung's first Bada phone, the Wave numero uno. [Thanks, Ronan]
Samsung announces Bada-powered Wave II, not quite a whole new Wave
We only just got our hands on the Wave S8500, but it looks like Samsung isn't wasting any time in further expanding its Bada options -- the company has just introduced the new and slightly improved Wave II. The biggest difference over the previous Wave, it seems, is a larger 3.7-inch WVGA SLCD screen, compared to a 3.3-inch AMOLED on its predecessor. Otherwise, you'll get the same speedy 1GHz Hummingbird processor, the same LED flash-equipped 5-megapixel camera and, of course, the same Bada -- although it does apparently add a new Swype-esque input method dubbed Trace. Look for this one to be available sometime in November (in Germany, at least) for a rather hefty €429, or about $590. [Thanks, Keith]
Samsung's Wave 2 and Wave 2 Pro slider join the bada OS party
Samsung's bada, heard of it? Samsung sure hopes so as it's betting heavily on the OS in its battle with Nokia to make cheap smartphones globally accessible. Today Samsung is introducing the Wave 2 (S5250) and Wave 2 Pro (S5330) QWERTY slider at CommunicAsia 2010. Both handsets are quad-band GPRS/EDGE (yup, no 3G) with 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1, a 3.2-inch TFT LCD, 3 megapixel camera with video recorder, A-GPS, and 80MB of memory with up to 16GB of microSD expansion. The all important user experience is handled by the TouchWiz 3.0 UI and bada's "social hub" that tightly knits together all your communications with contacts, be that over email, IM, or social networking sites. Both phones will be available in Russia and South East Asia starting in August.%Gallery-95202%
Siemens' Gigaset SE68 WiMAX ExpressCard arrives before the network
Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Without a bona fide WiMAX network for mass consumer use up and running yet here in America, Siemens is making sure you're really ready for its onset by announcing its first WiMAX ExpressCard. The Gigaset SE68 WiMAX is based on the IEEE 802.16-2005 standard and complies with Wave 2 specifications (including MIMO A / B), supports beamforming and has actually been demonstrated as functional way over in Singapore. With a network in place, users can expect mobile broadband speeds of up to 20Mbps, and while no price is given, you can just circle the entire summer of 2008 in anticipation of its arrival.
IEEE pushing 802.16m WiMAX to 1Gbps, hopes to converge with 4G
If there's one thing that we'll never be satisfied with, it's finding out just how many nanoseconds we can shave off our download times from year to year, and thankfully, the IEEE seems to get that. While it has certainly taken its sweet time with 802.11n, the task force has already voted to make 100G the next Ethernet speed, and now it's pushing to make WiMAX implementations even quicker. Reportedly announced at 3GSM, the IEEE has began working on a new version of the 802.16 standard, dubbed 802.16m, which "could push data transfer speeds up to 1Gbps while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing WiMAX radios." Potentially more interesting than cheering for speed boosts is the group's outright assurance that this protocol will meet the ITU's requirements for 4G, insinuating that it should be the token choice for further 4G developments. Nevertheless, the increased bandwidth is supposedly needed due to convergence between VoIP and various forms of multimedia (IPTV, streaming video, digital downloads, etc.), and however true that may be, some skeptics are still understandably doubting the whole "backwards compatibility" aspect. Still, the IEEE hopes to have this together by "the end of 2009," but considering the team's less-than-stellar track record in the deadline department, we're not holding our collective breath.[Via DailyWireless]
