The IEEE International Conference of Robotics and Automation is kicking off today in Kobe Japan. In other words, the world's leading researchers in the field of robotics are gathered in a single location to plot our doom. Don't believe us? Just check out the video after the break. It's a research piece from the Germany Aerospace Center depicting experiments of robots crashing into human test dummies. They claim that the research explores human-robot accidents so that robots can be made safer. We're not so sure though, judging by the devious laughter heard after the first gruesome impact.

We're probably still months, if not years out from seeing this whole white space debate amount to anything productive, but at least the IEEE is already toiling away on two new standards to address architecture and interfaces for white spaces access. In an admittedly jargon-filled release, the group responsible for keeping 802.11n in draft status for 14 centuries has reportedly approved work to begin on a new duo of protocols for "heterogeneous wireless networks based on the existing IEEE 1900.4 standard." The group specifically mentions IEEE P1900.4a, an amendment to 1900.4 which aims to "examine architecture and interfaces for dynamic spectrum access networks in white space frequency bands." Said standard would basically act to define new components for operating in white space frequencies, and with standardization will hopefully come easier implementation of widespread broadband. Check back in a score or so to see if we've made any progress.

[Via dailywireless]

We're not quite sure how much related celebrating went on this past weekend, but the iconic Compact Disc managed to hit the big three-oh. The IEEE was credited with presenting its prestigious IEEE Milestone Award to Royal Philips Electronics for its contribution to the development of the CD, and as the story goes, the award coincides with the 30th anniversary of the "historic demonstration of the first CD prototype codenamed 'Pinkeltje' on March 8th, 1979." While many would argue that the CD is on its way out in favor of smaller, highly portable MP3 files, the disc has definitely left a lasting mark on the industry. To date, over 3.5 billion audio CD players have been sold alongside 240 billion discs. Oh, and not to be a Debbie Downer or anything, but what are the chances that we won't be throwing an "over the hill" party for this here format?

[Thanks, Sylva]

Remember that DARPA initiative from a few years back to create cyborg insects? With funding from the agency, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have managed to control a rhinoceros beetle via radio signals, demonstrated in a flight test shown on video at this week's IEEE MEMS 2009 conference. A module placed on the arthropod uses six electrodes affixed to the brain and muscles to commandeer its free will. The device weighs 1.3g -- much less than the 3g payload these guys can handle, and with enough wiggle room to attach sensors for surveillance. Ultimately, scientists say they want to use the beetle's own sensors -- namely, its eyes -- to capture intel and its own body energy to power the apparatus. Keep an eye on this one, we expect it to play a major role in the impending robots vs. humans war.

[Thanks, Mimosa]

If you use a thumb-drive sans security your data is just a vacant USB port away from being thrown up on the internet, assets exposed to the world like some drunken heiress. Even secure devices, whether they use biometric scanners, hardware encryption, or even more extreme measures, all leave a lot to be desired: no standards means limited compatibility, and secure data you can't reliably access might as well be random strings of binary digits. The answer could be IEEE 1667, the "Standard Protocol for Authentication in Host Attachments of Transient Storage Devices." Among other things it would enable you to restrict where your thumb drive will work and, conversely, what thumb drives your machine will accept. If it becomes the standard it was born to be you'll be able to apply the same policies whether you're opening Windows 7, cuddling with Snow Leopard, or making jazz-hands with something a little less mainstream. Will it succeed? CNET's Jon Oltsik thinks Microsoft's support for the standard is a good omen and says "Let's all follow Redmond's lead in this case for the greater good." That's certainly not something you hear every day, but this time we're game.

While 802.11n has been stuck in endless certification hell for years, the IEEE keeps cranking out additional wireless standards -- the latest is 802.11r, which allows devices to move from access point to access point with less than 50ms in downtime, even for authenticated connections. That's quick enough to keep a voice call alive, which should make the next generation of VoIP phones and other devices that much more flexible when support arrives -- let's hope that's soon.

While FireWire 800 gear is still pretty rare and we've only seen one piece of FireWire 1600 kit, the IEEE is still pushing the standard forward -- it's just approved the 1394-2008 spec, which includes both FireWire 1600 and 3200. Interestingly, the spec is fully backwards compatible with both 400 and 800 ports, but it remains to be seen which connector gets used more prevalently. We'll find out in October, when the spec is made available to manufacturers -- looks like that controversial 2010 launch of USB 3.0 just got upstaged a little, huh?

[Via CrunchGear]

Whittling down the amount of remotes in one's living room has long since been a challenge for the amateur home theater builder, and while there are some decent universal solutions on the market, the RF4CE Consortium is hoping to make things painfully simple. The group has been formed in order to "drive the adoption of an open radio frequency (RF) entertainment control specification based on IEEE 802.15.4." If you'll recall, this isn't the first time we've heard that standard called, as it's also used in MaxStream's XBee Xtender. Notably, Freescale is hoping to incorporate its Synkro technology into the specification, and in an ideal world, we'd see said protocol filter into DVD players, AV receivers, set-top-boxes and all manners of components. Let the IR-to-RF transition begin, we say.

Read - Sony's RF4CE Consortium release
Read - Freescale's RF4CE Consortium release

CSIRO and aggravation tend to go hand in hand, so it's no real shock to learn that the organization is playing hard ball in a recent push to get 802.11n closer to ratification. Reportedly, CSIRO "refused to provide a letter of assurance to the IEEE working group developing the much-delayed 802.11n WiFi standard," and it cited legal discord between it and Microsoft, Intel, Dell, HP, Netgear, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Nintendo and 3Com as the primary holdup. The group's senior vice-president of licensing, Denis Redfern, was quoted as saying that "where litigation is involved, CSIRO will continue to reserve its rights in relation to licensing," so it looks like an official 802.11n standard is still that far off from being founded.

Ah, so now we know why it takes those IEEE task forces so incredibly long to get anything done: infighting. Turns out, the working group for the emerging IEEE 802.20 mobile broadband standard -- "which was suspended last year after a fight over members' real company affiliations" -- has altered its voting rules. Now, each entity will be allowed one vote rather than members voting as individuals "regardless of whom they work for." Essentially, these changes are occurring amidst concern about "domination of the group," and 802.20 Committee Chairman Paul Nikolich reportedly hopes than the voting modification will "help deliver the standard in a timely way." Of course, considering that some of the technology in the protocol was developed by Flarion (which was swallowed by Qualcomm), there could certainly be more problems around the bend beyond a straggle of control freaks.

You'll probably recall Atheros' name from the rundown of Draft 2.0 802.11n gear mentioned just a week ago, but now the firm is getting official with its bundle of refreshed pre-N gear. The new AR9001 family of chipset solutions builds upon the existing XSPAN offerings, and is reportedly compliant with the latest IEEE draft of 802.11n. Primarily aiming for SMB and Enterprise markets, the outfit is doling out a number of AR9001AP access points / router SoCs that "integrate its 802.11n MAC / baseband and 400MHz Wireless Network Processor (WNPU) into a single chip." On the consumer front, the AR9001U sect presents the "world's first dual-band capable 802.11n USB chipset," and also includes the company's first 1x2 MIMO configuration. Unsurprisingly, pricing details on all these goodies are still up in the air, but Atheros claims that second-generation AR9001 items are currently sampling to customers and should hit " full volume production" in Q3 of this year.

[Via PCWorld]

Just recently, we finally heard a bit of good news from the IEEE camp in regard to 802.11n's progress, and now wireless freaks can celebrate a little more as UWB has been officially published as an ISO / IEC international standard. We've already seen a number of related certification programs, prototypes, and even products, but just a few months after edging legality in the UK, it seems the deal is done. WiMedia-based ultra-wideband technology, which is the "approved format for Wireless USB," unsurprisingly enables "short range multimedia file transfers" at data rates up to 480Mbps that operate in the UWB spectrum of 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. So while the brief rivalry was indeed entertaining, we're sorry about your luck, Freescale.

[Via ExtremeTech]

It's been a long, hard road for all of us -- consumers, manufacturers, developers, and a little club called the 802.11n Working Group -- but the next-gen, MIMO-powered WiFi standard has finally reached an important milestone in its tortured journey from a wee pre-N to a full-fledged spec (hopefully!), with 83.4% of eligible voters approving the latest Draft 2.0 revision. As we all remember from the overwhelming initial rejection of Draft 1.0, a 75% supermajority is required for moving on to the next stage, so the fact that there was this much support coupled with relatively few comments (3,000-some versus the 12,000+ for that famous Draft 1.0 flameout) means that we may actually be on track for a planned April 2009 publication of the final IEEE spec. The best part is that since Draft 2.0 is guaranteed to be fully compatible with the finalized 802.11n, your current gear with the D 2.0 badge of honor will definitely play nice with future components. So we're in the home stretch now, folks -- all that's left is some nitpicking over technicalities and language -- and it looks like the naysayers will have been proven wrong after all; although when WiMax comes to town and makes WLANs irrelevant, there's a good chance that this whole ordeal will be quickly forgotten anyway.

[Via Ars Technica]

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]

Sure, they say the third time's a charm, but at this point, all "charm" in the grueling 802.11n ratification process has evaporated. Moving ever-so-slightly ahead of schedule, the IEEE's 802.11 working group has "unanimously approved Draft 1.10 of the 802.11n WiFi spec," and has now passed it along to the entire membership of the IEEE for final approval. Of course, we've certainly been down the unfortunate road before, but hopefully the folks in charge will give it the thumbs-up we all need to sanely move on with our wireless lives. Notably, there's "no set timeline" for when it expects an approval / denial decision, but if the membership does give this draft the green light, "it will be the final 802.11n specification." Now, let's all cross our collective fingers for some positive (and hasty) decision making.