Gigabit Wireless Will Link Smartphones To TVs

judgecorp writes "More progress for WiGig, the proposal for 3Gbps wireless links on 60GHz radio waves. The WiGig group has signed a deal with VESA, the display standards group, to include WiGig as a fast wireless option in VESA's DisplayPort standard. As well as letting you use a TV as a display for your phone, without having to connect a cable, it will also make synching and file transfer quicker."

Re:

[gstoddart]

Why would I want to synch or transfer files between my phone and my TV?

I *think* if you had a movie on your phone, you could watch it on your TV.

But, yeah. Is this maybe an excuse to try to sell us yet another TV since 3D isn't working?

Re:

[Qzukk]

excuse to try to sell us yet another TV

In that case, the TV companies are going to have a problem since the carriers will make sure it's disabled on all their phones so they can continue to sell their $50 5-cent cables with tiny, fragile connectors.

Re:

[gstoddart]

In that case, the TV companies are going to have a problem since the carriers will make sure it's disabled on all their phones so they can continue to sell their $50 5-cent cables with tiny, fragile connectors.

I'm pretty sure the phone carriers will also try to make sure this uses some of your data plan so they can "monetize" it.

A friend did some looking at the way our cell-phone carrier handled the in-phone web-browser a couple of years back -- they had intentionally changed Morotolla phones so they wouldn

Re:

[arisvega]

they had intentionally changed Morotolla phones so they wouldn't go straight to the web like they were designed, but go through a broker the phone company carried. It effectively doubled the # of bytes your transmitted

Evil bastards.

True that. Maybe a bit off-topic, but I have to add that some promotional Sony Ericsson ones (W660 comes in mind, you would be eligible to get them 'for free' if you were one of those customers that talked much) were 'pimped' by vodafone to try to connect to the internet VIA A FRIGGIN' DIALUP (through vodafone's portal ofcourse) by pressing almost any button after finishing a call- super-easy to accidently connect, at what could be the most expensive internet session, possibly second only to satellite.

What

Re:

[somersault]

But, yeah. Is this maybe an excuse to try to sell us yet another TV since 3D isn't working?

Why would you need another TV? Surely you would be able to buy an adapter to receive any WiGig signal and send it on to your TV.

There was a similar story to this last week, but I think it was for HDMI instead of DisplayPort.

As long as there's some form of passkey necessary to get access to the display, this would be great for stuff like meetings and presentations.

Re:

[alen]

except that if you have a movie on your phone it's compressed to look good on a small screen. on a 40" TV it will look like crap. it's the reason why BD disks can hold 50GB, because it takes more data to display a movie on a TV than a smaller screen like a phone or PMP

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[obarthelemy]

very true. I put 480x320 AVIs @ 12 FPS on my HTC HD2 (even though its screen rez is much better), and find that very watchable. When I try the same file on a normal screen ; it's horrendous.

in the near future though, there probably will be no reason to recompress files specifically for mobile use: mobile CPUs/GPUs will be powerful enough to play stright HD content, storage will be more abundant than the current "measly" 16-32 gig, and wireless connexions will let us stream content from a home server or the

Re:

[DrgnDancer]

It's a poorly written sentence (What? On Slashdot? Never!). It should read more along the lines of:

"This will allow you to use your TV as a display for your phone without a cable. It should also speed up syncs and file transfers to your computer."

Basically it's a data transfer tech. If you route a video signal over it, it'll give you the ability to display what's on your phone on the TV (assuming your TV has a receiver). If you route sync or file data over it, it'll speed up your ability to sync and tra

Re:

[obarthelemy]

looking at what my phone does, and what I do with my PC and TV, I can envision a not-too-distant future where my phone will be my CPU+basic storage unit, and I'll plug it in to a real screen+keybord/mouse/speakers to use it as a desktop, or hook it up to my TV and Stereo for media use.

A cheap home server/nas (a $80 linux plug computer ?) for more storage and a permanent and fast net connexion, a powerful phone for comfortable destop use and HD+Hifi media playing, and I'm all set. Looking at my current phone

An other encryption disaster ?

[Lennie]

Most are still using nothing, wep, wpa or the wrong wpa-2 options. :-(

Re:

[gstoddart]

Most are still using nothing, wep, wpa or the wrong wpa-2 options. :-(

And, just because the WiGig people signed withe the VESA people, have the MPAA/RIAA people allowed this?

Is broadcasting a movie over unsecured wireless from your phone to a TV an "infringing" use? I'm sure some lawyer will try to say that it is, and you're not allowed to do it.

They're not usually big fans of new ways for us to use the digital stuff we already have.

Re:

[SuricouRaven]

I imagine it'll use HDCP, the same encryption as HDMI. Possibly with a new master keyset or a few tweeks, as the current implimentation is compromised now. CEs will like HDCP - they can use already-designed-and-manufactured chips with just a wireless bridge attached.

Re:

[Shark]

I wonder how much overhead all this nonsensical encryption adds.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

I wonder how much overhead all this nonsensical encryption adds.

None at all. Most HDCP implementations are done in hardware. Last I looked you can get HDMI transmitters and HDMI receiver chips with built-in HDCP engines, and the keys and everything are built in too. You can query a register to figure out if HDCP is active or not, but for the most part, the encryption is handled purely in hardware.

And there's no real need for new keys - they can do it, but capturing video this way is highly inefficient, and

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

Is broadcasting a movie over unsecured wireless from your phone to a TV an "infringing" use? I'm sure some lawyer will try to say that it is, and you're not allowed to do it.

As a lay person, I would think if the signal was restricted to a single TV at a time from your smartphone, I'd say that would be legal even if the content was copyrighted. The MPAA/RIAA might complain all they want but if they can't block Slingbox (which transmits content over the Internet), they would have a hard time arguing against a short range (30ft), local broadcast. The FCC said in 2008 that the MPAA may not selectively block video inputs. [arstechnica.com]

Re:

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

you're 3.4ghz cpu is broken then. an Intel Celeron 430 (at the stock 1.8ghz that was launched in Q2-2007) can almost sustain half of 1Gbps doing AES-256. (76MB/s in that case, while operating other applications)

also: the spectrum use is barely going to determine how these particles interact with you. it's the power that will make a difference. you can be bombarded with anything from K (18-26.5GHz) all the way to F band (90-140GHz) microwaves hours a day, by satellites that broadcast with SIGNIFICANTLY m

Re:

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

I've got a grid of twenty four Vyatta Routers with dual core 2.2ghz procs encrypting at AES-192 and AES-256 over gigabit links, with Cisco 3845's on 100Mbps spokes.

I'm sorry to hear the implementation can't handle it, mine chugs along fine all the way to 100% usage on the pipes.

Re:

[somersault]

Sounds to me more like turning your phone into a high definition media player that gets rid of the need for a media server and blu-ray/DVD player.

If they put it into phones then it may also destroy some of the casual gaming console market. Phones often cost more than a Wii, but you still see young people with them all the time. One of my friends the other day was gobsmacked at a "kid.. with.. an iPhone" the other day. If a phone also doubles up as a games console then I can see parents jumping at the opport

Re:

[kevinmenzel]

Because phones are just chock full of the storage needed to replace a Bluray player. Or wait... no... phones have very small amounts of storage. Even 64GB is small. Battlestar Galactica on Bluray is what, something like 800GB of data or something?

Re:

[somersault]

You think that phones are going to be stuck at 64GB max forever? Besides, people rarely watch a whole series of a TV program in one showing, and the majority of series at the moment are still in SD format. Currently I have one series on blu-ray, and maybe 50 on DVD.

Even with no actual storage available, they could be used to stream media from iTunes/whatever in the same way that AppleTV and its competitors do. The market for streaming media is only going to continue growing to the detriment of physical medi

Re:

[PitaBred]

A single Blu-Ray disc can only hold ~50GB of data.

How long until cellphones have WiGig?

[jandrese]

Until very recently, it was hard to find anything beyond 802.11b in most cellphones. Now they're talking about leapfrogging all the way up to WiGig? How big are WiGig chips, what kind of power budget do they require, how expensive are they? This sounds like it might be a neat idea for 5+ years in the future, but it's completely impractical for anytime in the near future. I'm guessing the target market is people who want to play back video they've recorded from their phone camera on a big screen.

Re:How long until cellphones have WiGig?

[ADRA]

Nexus One has an 802.11N chip, and its a year old. The lack of higher end features was more about the cost of chips, and the power drain on using them, than the phone's capabilities to take those chips.

That said, I really don't see a large market for this kind of tech. I mean I have a PC sitting in my bedroom that stores all my files, and use PS3 Media Server to serve them up to my TV. I would never think: Hey lets download something large to my phone and stream it to my TV. It sounds retarded actually. The same thing goes for 'bringing videos to friends house'. Do you really see having large videos on your phone just waiting to play which aren't available for instant streaming on the internet?

Re:

[Sloppy]

I would never think: Hey lets download something large to my phone and stream it to my TV. It sounds retarded actually.

And even if you did have such an idea, if you wanted to stream video over wireless, modern TVs have their own players in 'em, so you would just run minidlna or something like that on your phone, so that the compressed video would be sent over wireless and decoded with ffmpeg on the TV. You wouldn't have the phone decode the video (a kind of intense thing to be doing on a battery-powered

OK, great

[Gizzmonic]

That's great.

Except that no one uses DisplayPort. It was basically invented in order to avoid paying royalties to Intel, who holds patents on HDMI and DVI. There are more TVs with VGA ports at this point, and that's unlikely to change.

Re:

[Gizzmonic]

And how many DisplayPort TVs are at your work?

Also, DisplayPort is far from common even in the PC world.

Re:

[catmistake]

Your point is thin. I'd like to point out that before everyone started using USB, no one used it.

Re:

[gstoddart]

I'd like to point out that before everyone started using USB, no one used it.

Wow, that's very meta.

Before you posted that, nobody had read it. ;-)

Zeno's Paradox

[srussia]

I'd like to point out that before everyone started using USB, no one used it.

Wow, that's very meta.

Before you posted that, nobody had read it. ;-)

This is just about what Zeno's paradox boils down to: "The Hare never catches the Tortoise until it does."

Re:

[Gizzmonic]

USB solved a problem-a cheap, hot-swappable universal interface for printers, scanners, keyboards, and mice. Before USB, each one of those devices had a separate connection with its own separate connection.

DisplayPort doesn't solve any problems except 'how can we avoid paying royalties to Intel?'. End-users don't care about that. The uptake from PC manufacturers has been tepid at best. Look at the mishmash choices for DisplayPort you have from Lenovo or Dell...very confusing. Outside of the monolithic

Re:

[peragrin]

And no used USB until Apple made it the only way to connect devices. Seriously windows 98 and ME had little standard USB support. Even then it was until 2004 that ps2 ports were the most common port sold with new computers.

USB adoption was very slow.

Re:

[iivel]

Why differentiate between TVs and monitors when looking at the near future? They are so close to convergance and the volimnous content available online will have the tuner portion that makes it a TV nearly moot.

Additionally, anyone using resolutions/frequencies higher thatn 1920x1200 60Hz can appreciate DisplayPort.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Who makes those monitors? One of the things keeping me from upgrading my MacBook Pro at the moment is the lack of DisplayPort monitors. I've not seen any that weren't either made by Apple or significantly more expensive than the equivalent without DisplayPort (but I repeat myself).

Re:

[iivel]

I'm in a similar boat to the AC. Our shop has everyone running dual-30" monitors at 2560x1600. The "high-performance" Dell workstations that we have use the Quattro cards (with dual DisplayPort +1 DVI-D).

Monitors are the Dell btw .. I do think they are a bit on the overpricy side; but as has been discussed in numerous /. threads - not much is going into the DPI increases of larger screens since 1080p & therefore the price isn't dropping.

Re:

[AndrewNeo]

And you can still find LCD monitors that only have VGA and not DVI. What's your point? DisplayPort is still new. It'll take a while. DVI wasn't adopted overnight.

Re:

[gabebear]

One big reason for the lack of DisplayPort on TVs is that you don't need DisplayPort for 1080p. If you want to go past 1920x1200, you either have to use the dual-link-DVI stuff(also not on any TV) or DisplayPort.

DisplayPort outputs always have a "DVI mode" where you just have to level shift the signal to HDMI/single-link-DVI.

Re:

[Luyseyal]

And what about audio? This sounds like a nice way to use your phone as your workstation (wigig + bluetooth) but for watching video with sound, it would be craptacular without bluetooth headphones or speakers or something.

-l

Re:

[SuricouRaven]

Displayport would die very quickly if not for the support of one very influencial company, Apple. I use them on my mac pro.... together eith DP->VGA adaptors, because the only monitors that support DisplayPort natively are Apple's ridiculously-overpriced displays.

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

DisplayPort is relatively new. Some newer computers are starting to come with DisplayPort. Apple has started putting it in all their products and ATI/AMD has started to put it in some of their video cards. DisplayPort is somewhat backwards compatible with older ports. From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

Although DisplayPort's signal is not compatible with HDMI or DVI, Dual-mode ports (which are marked with DP++ logo) can use DisplayPort wires to transmit single-link HDMI and DVI signals which are then converted to higher signal levels by passive external adapters. Dual-link DVI and analog VGA are supported through powered adapters which perform active conversion.

Never bet against packet data networks

[bill_mcgonigle]

see also: history.

If it can be packetized, it can be repeated and routed. Look for DisplayPort over IPv6 before it's dead.

Phone TV?

[dragonhunter21]

Droid in 1080p... *glorious*

Re:

[somersault]

Droid in 1080p... *glorious..ly slow*

FTFY :)

Re:

[dragonhunter21]

Pah. Details.

Oh great, another festering patent pool...

[advocate_one]

designed to lock open source competition out and yet another splurge of patents, but "with a phone on your TV" tacked on them to make them seem novel...

a sea change in computing

[Anonymous Coward]

The phone is going to replace the desktop and laptop PC for most user. (Ok, someone always point out some niche use that will remain, but it's just that: niche). It will talk to your high res monitor, keyboard, mouse, internet, and other phones, but it'll just be carried with you in your pocket and wherever you go, it will be there too. True mobile computing with all the advantages of fixed resources when you are near them.

The traditional desktop PC will fade away. Phones are getting increasingly powerf

Re:

[jedidiah]

> It also means safer computing and less viruses, because app stores will be a barrier for malware.

All you need for "safer computing" is to just ditch Microsoft.

You don't need Steve's Walled Garden at all.

Tony Stark

[Bryan3000000]

This is exactly what I need to pull that phone to display trick Tony pulled in Iron Man 2.

You have to admit that's cool. Some of your friends are watching a movie and you point your phone at the screen to commandeer the display and show video of your recent surgery, or stupid cat tricks, or even live video surveillance of your empty bedroom...

Range and attenuation

[molo]

I believe that in this microwave frequency range, the signals will be attenuated by atmosphere, so there will be natural limitations on range, especially at low power.

In ham radio, there are people doing 47 GHz propagation of morse code (CW) and voice signals via rainscatter. (think of weather radar) The record range is 343km from mountaintop to mountaintop using high-powered directional dishes (W6QI and AD6FP).

-molo

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

60 Ghz, if I recall, is the resonance frequency of atmospheric oxygen. Using this off a battery-powered device will either mean having the device VERY close to the other stuff you want it talking to, or torching the battery by way of increased broadcast wattage.

To me, it seems to be a solution looking for a problem.

Re:

[SuricouRaven]

The atmosphere is only 21% oxygen. They say it'll get you a few meters, and that's all you really need.

Re:

[molo]

You are correct 60GHz seems to be an O2 absorption frequency, see this chart:

http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/images/mmwavechart.gif [microwaves101.com]

It looks like 4 dB/km attenuation in the dry and 15 dB/km in the rain.

-molo

will there be a directional waveguide?

[srinathhs]

At that frequency you ought to have directional antennas.. and probably use ur phone to cook food (as a death ray..??) ..!!!!

Re:

[Anne Thwacks]

Fantasies of "Take this plane to cuba, or I'll watch a movie!"

goatse

[vlm]

As well as letting you use a TV as a display for your phone, without having to connect a cable,

So, what you're really telling us, is that soon, with a directional antenna and a little work, I'll be able to goatse the tv aisle at best buy, walmart, and the local sports bar.

I'm liking it!

Re:

[robot256]

Only an idiot would leave their TV on "wireless input takes priority" mode. Heck, I would love it if input priority was even an option on my monitors. Otherwise, if they're already displaying something there's nothing you can do about it.

Re:

[robot256]

LOL wrong thread, buddy. This one actually obeys the laws of physics.

Would be nice...

[hesaigo999ca]

It would just be nice to be able to just hook up a little connector from my iphone to the TV set, and then i could watch my netflix movie running on my iphone over to my TV screen, or whatever my iphone screen was showing, is this even possible...if so how?

Radio waves?

[Abdul Jakul]

Old technology made new. I thought it was some kind of microwave and such. Funny how the human mind can come up with almost anything just to label things "cool" Learn DSLR Video Store [learndslrvideostore.com]