ShortRange
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Qualcomm's Peanut challenges ZigBee, Bluetooth for control of your personal area network next year
Perhaps dissatisfied with the glacial pace of Wibree, Qualcomm's working on an ultra-low-power, short-range wireless transfer tech of its own -- it's called Peanut, and executives claim it only needs "fractions of a milliwatt of power" to push data at several megabits per second. Computerworld got the scoop on the new low-power radio at EmTech@MIT 2010, and reports that Qualcomm's had these goobers in the oven since 2006 and is looking to trump the likes of ZigBee and Bluetooth by this time next year. Assuming, of course, the Peanut standard doesn't require a molasses-like committee of its own to attain formal approval.
Sony outs world's first TransferJet chips for short-range wireless transfer
Induction chargers like Palm's Touchstone are great and all but they lack one significant feature long mastered by USB tethers: data transfer. That could soon change as Sony begins pushing out its first TransferJet LSI in hopes of obtaining broad industry adoption of this newest form of short-range wireless transmission technology. TransferJet, remember, allows for a theoretical 560Mbps (closer to 375Mbps in the real-world) wireless transfer at a distance of about 3 centimeters -- a standard backed by big-hitting camera companies like Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Casio, Kodak, and Olympus and Japanese cellphone interests like NTT DoCoMo, Softbank Mobile, Toshiba, and Sony Ericsson. Just imagine yourself waving a TransferJet-equipped Sony Ericsson phone in front of your new Bravia TV and having all your photos and videos appear on the big screen and you've just seen the future. Individual samples are available now for ¥1,500 (about $17) in either PCI or SDIO-connector versions. Now head on past the break to see the tech in action from our CEATEC hands-on.
