GigaWire - More Info

[seb]

Many of you have likely heard about GigaWire but, like myself, wondered exactly what that might be.

I saw this article at OSOpinion with some good and fairly substantiated info about GigaWire.

<a href="http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/15463.html" target="_blank">www.osopinion.com/perl/story/15463.html</a>

I'm curious to hear what people think about this and how it might possibly be used?

[Logan Cale]

Can't do bus power with wireless, can you? Walk between the two devices and *BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*

[seb]

Perhaps, perhaps not. I don't know.

I see no problems with walking between the two devices though. A friend of mine has a TiPB and an AirPort base station and I walk between the two without a problem all the time. Well, not all the time, but have done it numerous times.

Bus powered though? I don't know. Being able to 'beam electricity power' through the air would indeed be quite innovative.

[apple.otaku]

[quote]Originally posted by MacAgent:
<strong>Can't do bus power with wireless, can you? Walk between the two devices and *BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*</strong><hr></blockquote>

iCancer. Not a product I'm looking forward to.

[The Rootwitch]

Wireless FireWire. Interesting. Should be called FireWireless rather than GigaWire.

[DaveGee]

[quote]Originally posted by seb:
<strong>Being able to 'beam electricity power' through the air would indeed be quite innovative.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Ummm not exactly... (I happen to be a big Nikola Tesla fan) Nikola Tesla inventor of the Radio (they told you it was Marconi... they were wrong) the ability to distribute of AC Current via his AC induction motor (they told you it was Edison... they were wrong, Edison was still trying to use DC) and a ton of other cool things INCLUDING wireless power transmision!

This man was in a word AMAZING... It's too bad he never got the respect he deserved. :(

[quote]Tesla moved to the United States in 1884, where he worked for Thomas Edison who quickly became a rival Edison being an advocate of the inferior DC power transmission system. During this time, Tesla was commissioned with the design of the AC generators installed at Niagara Falls. George Westinghouse purchased the patents to his induction motor, and made it the basis of the Westinghouse power system which still underlies the modern electrical power industry today. He also did notable research on high-voltage electricity and wireless communication; at one point creating an earthquake which shook the ground for several miles around his New York laboratory. He also devised a system which anticipated worldwide wireless communications, fax machines, radar, radio- guided missiles and aircraft. Nikola Tesla is the true unsung prophet of the electronic age; without whom our radio, auto ignition, telephone, alternating current power generation and transmission, radio and television would all have been impossible. Yet his life and times have vanished largely from public access. This autobiography is released to remedy this situation.<hr></blockquote>

Here is a very interesting read!

<a href="http://www.apc.net/bturner/tesla.htm" target="_blank">http://www.apc.net/bturner/tesla.htm</a>

Dave

[ 12-21-2001: Message edited by: DaveGee ]

[ 12-21-2001: Message edited by: DaveGee ]</p>

[The Rootwitch]

Didn't he invent a time machine too?

[Addison]

No that was H.G. Wells

[X704]

[quote]Originally posted by The Rootwitch:
<strong>Didn't he invent a time machine too?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Nope, just Warp Drive which you can use in conjunction with the sun to achive time travel.

:p :D :p

I'm getting really excited over Gigawire. I hope it doesn't fail to dissapoint (better show up at MWSF!!) becuase Smalldog had a $49 airport card sale that I passed up on because I'm assuming I won't want it once Gigawire comes around (perhaps that's why their getting rid of their excess airport cards? Maybe they know something ...) <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[Bigc]

maybe all of Apples stuff will have mobo built-in airport for inter-connectivity

[Gilsch]

Davegee, indeed Nikola Tesla was an amazing inventor. I had forgotten those facts. Thanks for the reminder.

[CosmoNut]

Remember all those jokes about a cordless extension cord? Looks like we're on the way to actually having it! :D

[Smircle]

Originally posted by seb:
[quote]Many of you have likely heard about GigaWire but, like myself, wondered exactly what that might be.

I saw this article at OSOpinion with some good and fairly substantiated info about GigaWire.[..]

I'm curious to hear what people think about this and how it might possibly be used?<hr></blockquote>

"Wire" in Gigawire leads me to believe it has something to do with wires.
I could arguably be totally wrong (after all, Firewire does not burn), BUT I'd rather believe it was the 2nd-gen Firewire.

As Firewire 2.0 is supposed to work over glassfiber and Cat-5 Ethernet cables, it would be only straightforward to make it run over wireless as well - but only as _one_ of serveral media, the preferred still being FW cables.

[zac4mac]

Good call DaveGee -

Thomas Edison was the Bill Gates of his time.
Nikola Tesla was a true genius.

There are several applications of "beamed power" - NASA does it on some satellites. RF-ID badges, the ones you use to get the door to open at work. The ones I worked on had an EEPROM core that could be reprogrammed. When the card is in range, it receives a steady carrier pulse from the host interface that is used to power up the chip and spit out it's unique code string. Best range we could get was four feet. Small stuff tho, very low power. You ain't gonna run an external CDR wirelessly...

Zack

[InsideAppler]

Fiber optic data transfer, GigaWire is.

[Eupfhoria]

uh people, electricity cannot travel through teh air.

Electricity needs metals to conduct. Non-metals do not have the right molecular structure to support this. Unless you found some way to have enough metal particles"dissolved" into the air it won't work, but if you did you have have the exact same effect of stepping into a large pool of electrically charged water.

[catalyst]

Not if you read about Nikola Tesla... :)

[Wrong Robot]

Tesla was a ****ing wizard, He was unbelieveable, I'll bet he used well over 50 percent of his brain, Its a shame we don't have more super geniuses these days

[MacMan]

you can transfer electricity through the air, it's called lightning.

[Flipped]

Well, electrical current is merely one form of energy transfer - which indeed does not transfer efficiently through air/space.

Radiation (light, microwave, radio etc - ie electromagnetic) travels through air/space relatively easily, however it seems to need to go in a straight line and cannot transfer high amounts of energy without becoming some kind of nasty death ray.

Now if we could just bend space through one of those spare 19 dimensions or so and connect two points without interrupting the space "inbetween"...

[WeEeEeEdAsH]

Just take Point A and Point B, bend them to each other and there you have a wormhole for transporting energy...

[Junkyard Dawg]

Gigawire does not transfer electricity through space.

It is not some form of warp drive.

It is not a transporter that can beam people to the moon.

It's an APPLE product, so don't expect too much. My bet is that it is some form of data transmission technology that uses WIRES. Probably will complement Firewire, rather than actually succeeding it. It will be used in a variety of different applications.

[Toofeu]

From what I have heard, it is a technology that allow a high tranfer of data between the CPU, and the motherboard

[Krassy]

i did a search on the U.S. Trademark Electronic Search System on:

<a href="http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=i2lbih.1.1" target="_blank">http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=i2lbih.1.1</a>


The description part of the database entry is the following...

"IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Telecommunication services; cellular telephone communication; Communication by computer terminals, communication by telephone, facsimile transmission; providing of electronic mail (E-Mail); computer aided transmission of messages and images; communication between computer peripherals and devices; information about telecommunication.
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: electrical and electronic equipment; computer hardware; computer firmware; computers; computer peripheral devices; handheld computers; telephones, mobile telephones, communication devices; telecommunications equipment and devices; wireless information devices; computer software programs; computer operating system programs; computer utility programs; computer application programs; computer software for the design, development, modeling, simulation, compiling, de-bugging, verification, construction and interfacing of electrical and electronic equipment, integrated circuits, cables and connectors all for use with computers, telecommunications equipment and devices, or computer peripheral devices; parts and fittings for all the aforesaid goods."

greets,
granny

[BuonRotto]

Is there a difference between frequency and data transfer speeds? The article mentions 5 GHz as the frequency (like my phone has a 2.4 GHz frequency), but does that have anything to do with the amount of data that gets carried across, or just hows often the thing says "hello" to either end?

Me = ignoramus.

[Crusader]

It is very cool to see so many Tesla fans on AI. So as long as we are talking about wireless data transmission, anyone want to bring up J.D. Bell's theorem?

[mmicist]

[quote]Originally posted by BuonRotto:
<strong>Is there a difference between frequency and data transfer speeds? The article mentions 5 GHz as the frequency (like my phone has a 2.4 GHz frequency), but does that have anything to do with the amount of data that gets carried across, or just hows often the thing says "hello" to either end?

Me = ignoramus.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Frequency and data transfer speeds (bandwidth) are distinct, although not entirely unrelated. The higher the frequency, the easier it is to get enough bandwidth to transmit at a high data rate.
The problem with Apple coming up with a marvelous wireless data link working at very high data rates is that it can'y really do it without letting anybody know, as the bandwidth is allocated, and independently in most countries at that, it would have to get authorisation from at least the US, EU, and japanese communication authorities before launching that, or it would limit it's marvelous new system to just one country.

Michael

[Jack Meggan]

first : there is AM radio that works without batteries. so YES, you can transmit eletric power through thin air. it's called "eletro magnetic waves".. the problem is that to transmit enough energy to power a device, could cause you brain damage.

second : the highest the frequency you work in, more allocation zones you have, and more bandwidth you have per channel (allocation zones). so , if you are working in 5ghz frequency , you can transmit more bits per second. in digital comunication, the zeros and ones are encoded in a senoidal wave. this wave is irradiated through the antennas. the higher the frequency, more zeros and ones can fit the wave at the same period of time...

i think airport works at 2.4 ghz, that is a free frequency. it means you don't need a license to use it , if you equipament is low power..

900 mhz works the same way. thats why you have cordless phones working at 900mhz, and nobody has a license.

i think 5ghz is another free frequency, but I am not sure.

regarding other countries... there are only 3 trendsetting places : US, Japan and Europe... the other places adopts one of those trends..

Here in brasil we usually adopt US standards. so I don't think it's a problem to sell high frequency equipament, 'cause the free frequency in US is the same free frequency in other places..

correct me if I am wrong ....

[AlbertWu]

[quote]Originally posted by zac4mac:
<strong>RF-ID badges, the ones you use to get the door to open at work. The ones I worked on had an EEPROM core that could be reprogrammed. When the card is in range, it receives a steady carrier pulse from the host interface that is used to power up the chip and spit out it's unique code string. Best range we could get was four feet. Small stuff tho, very low power. You ain't gonna run an external CDR wirelessly...

Zack</strong><hr></blockquote>

If you've ever opened up an RF-ID badge, there's a large loop of wire connected to a small smart-card-esque chip. the badge-reader generates a magnetic field that induces a current in the wireloop inside the badge, and so the chip has enough power to send back a signal. There's a limitation to this technology though. Any stronger and the magnetic field would start wiping credit cards, etc.

[Wrong Robot]

Well I was thinking about this a little bit, I don't think gigawire is the next firewire, Mainly cuz, all the peripheral companies would be developing gigawire capable stuff, and with all those companies devloping gigawire compatible stuff wouldn't we know about it? sure its not that hard to keep a secret amongst one or two companies, but dozens of companies? especially with the information hungry crowd. but then again only two things REALLY benefit from gigawire(assuming its a 1.6 gbps capable wire)thats external HDs and digital movie cameras, there have been rumors of an apple branded digital camera, Perhaps they plan on releasing a digital movie camera using gigawire and being able to sync up with imovie and final cut pro.
this all assuming gigawire is the next firewire(which is suppose to be 800 mbps and scalable to 3.2 gbps transers)

[catalyst]

Developers have already been told to get their stuff ready for 1394b at WWDC 2001. Apple also offered specifications to developers.

[edit: so whatever 1394b is called doesn't really affect the developers till they start packaging. that said, i still think gigawire isn't 1394b.]

[ 12-24-2001: Message edited by: catalyst ]</p>

[apple.otaku]

Many years ago radio stations had broadcasting towers that were so powerful the lights in nearby homes didn't go off when they were turned off. They just dimmed. Fun fact.

[ 12-24-2001: Message edited by: apple_otaku ]</p>

[AaronS]

Gigawire won't be Firewire 2.0. A change in name confuses customers. Every time Apple comes out with a new iMac, they don't change the name. It's the same thing, only better. That's just my opinion.

_aarons

[InsideAppler]

For LAN.

[Wrong Robot]

[quote]Originally posted by InsideAppler:
<strong>For LAN.</strong><hr></blockquote>

LAN for Maybe hmmmmmmm?

[applenut]

It's not for LAN. Gigabit ethernet and future 10Gigabit Ethernet or more then whats neccessary for LANs.

Gigawire is likely a fiber optic cable that Apple will over with Firewire 2 for 1.6gb/sec data transfer between devices.

The Firewire spec calls for speeds up to 3gb/sec I believe using fiberoptic cable and the name gigawire makes sense for that purpose and the description in the trademark site

[Outsider]

Well we know that to achieve 1.6Gb and 3.2Gb speeds over firewire you need fiber instead of normal copper. So it makes sense like applenut says that it's the name of the port for the new firewire. I would guess Apple would include 2 copper ports and one new "Gigawire" port for the new connection.

[Nebagakid]

just make gigawire backwards compatible <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />

[Logan Cale]

They should call it FiberWire. ;)
I don't like "GigaWire".

[OverToasty]

[quote]Originally posted by Smircle:
<strong>
As Firewire 2.0 is supposed to work over glassfiber and Cat-5 Ethernet cables, it would be only straightforward to make it run over wireless as well - but only as _one_ of serveral media, the preferred still being FW cables.</strong><hr></blockquote>

That makes the most sense to me, in the very same way Ethernet has those exact same options: sooner or later, some Apple Engineer/Marketing Maven must've went "Hmmmm, I wonder if we can do the same thing with Firewire?"

Thus, here we are.

Or rather, I think it'll be a rather happy place once we get there.

[apple.otaku]

[quote]Originally posted by applenut:
<strong>
The Firewire spec calls for speeds up to 3gb/sec I believe using fiberoptic cable and the name gigawire makes sense for that purpose and the description in the trademark site</strong><hr></blockquote>

I think you need to read to description of Gigawire at the trademark site again. It has nothing to do with Firewire. It is the total opposite of Firewire. It has to do with wireless communications.

[applenut]

[quote]Originally posted by apple_otaku:
<strong>

I think you need to read to description of Gigawire at the trademark site again. It has nothing to do with Firewire. It is the total opposite of Firewire. It has to do with wireless communications.</strong><hr></blockquote>

simply because it mentions mobile phones and cellular phones does not mean it has to do with wireless communications. there are a ton of applications listed there and 2 (from my count) could hint at wireless

[phygen]

Another Tesla fan here. Have y'all seen that movie that was made about him in early 80s, I forget the name? I remember the scenes of his wireless experiments well, and also that sad last scene of him alone in the tiny New York apartment where he died. Good to see he has fans here!

I got to this thread to finally learn the truth about Gigawire, but no such luck. Will it be wire, fiber, or air? Who knows, but I recall Apple dissing the wired nature of Firewire about a year ago in their own article about a young filmmaker, like how bad it is to trip on a wire and see the cam flying. I sure hope Gigawire is a misnomer for a wireless new technology. Firewire just isn't sexy anymore, I don't care how many bytes it can take. :)

[Logan Cale]

I doubt it will be wireless, because it has the word "Wire" in the name.

[userone]

"wireless" also has wire in it... but means without wire!

;)


userone

[pepsi]

gigawire sounds an awful lot like bluetooth to me...

kinda like sony's i.link is to firewire

gigawire could be to bluetooth?

[chromos]

Okay, so I'm getting excited by this Gigawire. In <a href="http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/15463.html" target="_blank">Apple's FireWire to Go Wireless at 5 GHz</a>, Gigawire is surmised to be a collaboration of the 1394b Wireless Working Group with the 802.11e Wireless LAN Task Group. Cool... fast wireless FireWire.

(see also <a href="http://www.1394ta.org/Press/2001Press/december/12.3.a.htm" target="_blank">this</a>)

Okay, now my brain kinda wanders and latches upon <a href="http://www.dv.com/magazine/2001/0501/waggoner0501.html" target="_blank">MPEG-4</a>. What especially attracted my attention in the article was: [quote]MPEG-4's theoretical sweet spot goes all the way from extremely low bandwidth mobile devices all the way up to HDTV.<hr></blockquote> Which seemed to mesh quite well with the trademark description for Gigawire. Although the name 'Gigawire' sounds more like it'd be for hardware, and not some protocol. But we all know that QuickTime is MPEG-4's file format. Hmmm...

More wandering... I'd love to jump on the HDTV bandwagon, but don't want to get a new set. Just like USB, I can see Apple jump-starting the market for HDTV by somehow enabling its users to tap into this medium. (Why not put those beautiful, almost-letterbox displays to use?)

If anyone can bring me back to earth, please do. :)

[Edit: how embarrassing, I was quoting the article mentioned in the first post!! :( I was wondering where I had seen that... mea culpa].

[ 12-28-2001: Message edited by: chromos ]</p>