Wi-Fi and RFID Convergence

WORTHLESS !!!

At the MTTS (microwave) show week before last, all anybody could talk about was WiFi. When everybody jumps on the new-new thing all at once, expect blood on the sidewalks of Silicon Valley. Except that they actually don't have many sidewalks.

John

That's because they're still at the cleaners after the last bloodbath. ;-)

--
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prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

There is sure some interesting and real potential there, especially in

3rd world countries where it could pre-empt construction of some expensive infrastructure. Of course that doesn't mean that investors won't be mercilessly fleeced, but the chip makers should make out like bandits.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

frequency

of

This blather does not answer the "Why" question: as in "why would anyone care" (except the pink-sheet stock pushers looking to unload a few trillion shares to make a buck - literally).

Hmm... I was there, John, and at least the RFID people I talked to spent a lot of time emphasizing how they think tags are already too complex in terms of the digital protocol layers and they're hoping that another IEEE group that's tasked with coming up with Yet Another Universal RFID Standard doesn't do what the last one did by adding hundreds of thousands of additional transistors! (Although they did admit that some of the features in the new protocol were useful -- just stressing how those extra transistors are rapidly making the cost of the tags untenable for mass adoption.)

I would agree that it's silly to suggest that RFID should somehow play in the same arena as WiFi... sure, it could, but again it looks like it's not a particular cost effective solution.

To tell you the truth, I remember a lot more people talking about WiMax -- including that key note address by Intel's guy, of course -- than WiFi, which is rapidly becoming old news, it seems -- at least as far as "research" goes.

---Joel

Oops, sorry, it was WiMax. Yes, the runner-up was RFID.

There's a lot of technology out there on the prowl for the Next Big Thing.

John

Absolutely... and I skimmed some article a week or so ago about Intel has had a falling out with its various industry partner over WiMax modulation schemes. It sounded like the usual problem where each vendor wants to make its own IP a big part of The Standard -- I recall that Qualcomm wanted to use heavily CDMA-based technologies (surprise, surprise!) , and Intel wasn't as keen on the concept.

I remember whan Intel sandbagged the EISA bus. They sat on all the committees, pretended to concurr, and then announced PCI.

John

schemes.

a

Thank &deity. EISA was such a pile of steaming cow dung *anything* was better, even PCI at that time.

--
  Keith