Actiontec proposes a solution for customers wanting to extended wifi signal range around the home-- the WCB3000, a Multimedia over Coax (MoCA)-based wireless network adapter.

The WCB3000 leverages on existing coax wiring to extend wifi signals in areas suffering from weak wireless coverage, such as a dead zone within a 2nd floor bedroom.

It mirrors wifi signals from the router-- meaning customers remain on the "same" network if they move to a different part of the house.

Device features include Continue reading...

The Wifi Alliance starts certification of 802.11ac products with the Wifi Certified 11ac program-- with hopes of bringing networking products with higher data rates, greater capacity and reduced latency to market in the near future.

802.11ac wifi operates on the 5GHz band. Most wifi certified products are also dual-band (operating on either 2.4 or 5GHz bands), providing networks with double capacity as the 5GHz band finds use for high-performance applications and 2.4GHz for basic needs.

ABI Research forecasts 2014 dual-band wifi chipset shipments will reach 1.5 billion units.

Linksys reveals a pair of additions for its Smart Wifi router range-- the AC 1200 and AC 1600, both promising easy setup (via web browser) and SimpleTap connections through QR code or NFC tag.

The two devices support 802.11ac, IPv6 and beamforming technology, providing wireless speeds up to x3 faster than Wireless-N according to the company. Linksys Smart Wifi apps allow remote home network access, while ports include gigabit ethernet and USB 3.0.

The AC1200 promises bit rates of 867Mbps on Continue reading...

Netgear announces the first products supporting its Beamforming+ technology-- the R3600 802.11ac dual-band gigabit router and the A6200 802.11ac dual-band wifi USB adapter.

Beamforming+ is the Netgear implementation of the Beamforming signal-focusing technology standard. According to the company it improves wifi performance and range by recognising wireless device location(s) before directing wifi signals right at them.

The targeted approach adjusts transmitted signal phase, delivering stable Continue reading...

As customers use more connected devices, home networks must provide steady internet connections, Gartner reports-- providing robust, reliable and fast fixed broadband access.

“Until 3 or 4 years ago consumers primarily accessed the Internet through PCs and laptops but at the beginning of 2013 the picture is very different,” the analyst says. “Consumers use multiple screens to perform various activities that require both fixed and mobile Internet connectivity... Consumers are screen-agnostic-— they will use whichever screen is convenient, as long as it is ‘connected.’”

According to Gartner in 2013 the average home houses 10 "potentially internet-enabled devices" used not only for video sharing and viewing but also home protection, monitoring, security, fitness and health monitoring. The analyst estimates annual WW wifi-only home device (mostly tablets) growth will reach 60 million units until 2016, while global mobile device CAGR (not counting smartphones on a mobile data plan) should total over 8% for the same period.

Why are these guys smiling? You’d smile, too, if you were voted funds on Kickstarter to develop The PanaCast Experience.

Altia Systems is now shipping PanaCast Experience for desktop and mobile device multi-point communications.

PanaCast delivers an immersive, real-time 200° panoramic video experience with up to 60 fps and HD audio to anyone, anywhere, with an internet connection. Even at 3G wireless speeds, PanaCast enables Panoramic-HD video quality and always includes enterprise-level video encryption.

Each remote participant (using the free PanaCast app) can choose their own individual perspective from the stationary camera’s real-time panoramic video stream with the swipe of a finger (or zooming in and out with a finger pinch/spread). Continue reading...

University of Southampton researchers create hollow, air-filled fibre optic cable-- eliminating the latency of standard fibre technology by pushing data at 99.7% of the speed of light.

The hollow optical fibre transfers data at up to 73.7TBps (roughly 10 terabytes per second), some 1000 times faster than current 40-gigabit optic links.

"Light propagates 31% slower in a silica glass fibre than in vacuum, thus compromising latency," the paper, titled "Towards high-capacity fibre optic communication at the speed of light in vacuum," says.

Freescale Semiconductor introduces a tiny chip to address the miniaturisation trend for the Internet of Things (IoT)-- the Kinetis KL02, the smallest ARM-powered microcontroller unit (MCU) in the world.

The KL02 measures all of 1.9 x 2.0mm and still is a full MCU, with 32k of flash memory, 4K RAM, 32-bit 48MHz ARM Cortex-MO+ processor and built-in autonomous peripherals (including a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter and a low-power UART) allowing device makers to build increasingly smaller boards Continue reading...