Tag: Wi-Fi personal area network

Olympus’s voice recorder that works with a smartphone via Wi-Fi

Article

You Can Start and Stop This Wi-Fi Voice Recorder From Your Smartphone | Gizmodo

From the horse’s mouth

Olympus America

Press Release

Product Page

My Comments

When I mentioned about the digital cameras in my first report on the Consumer Electronics Show 2014, I had gave a brief mention to the Olympus DM-901 digital voice recorder which is able to exploit Wi-Fi wireless network technology. The question that could be raised is whether the recorder works as its own wireless network or is able to be part of an existing small wireless network such as a home network, a phone’s “personal hotspot” or a Mi-Fi’s local network.

This recorder uses Wi-Fi alongside a smartphone app to provide it with remote-control ability. For example, when you are recording a presentation, you could place the recorder on the podium or a piece of furniture near where the speaker is and choose where to sit rather than always having to be “up the front” with your recorder to make sure it’s recording properly.

There is also the ability to upload pictures you take with your smartphone to the recorder in order to create a visual index. This would be relevant when you are taking pictures of the slides shown in the presentation or items that are being demonstrated through that presentation or you take a picture of someone who is giving their report in a multi-speaker meeting.

The recorder also has the ability to upload recordings to Dropbox for cloud-based archiving or sharing but I would also like to see this be extended to the ability to upload to SoundCloud or other audio-sharing services.

Like most of the good-quality voice recorders, the Olympus has the voice-recording optimisation abilities which include 2 high-grade microphones with “zoom microphone” function that also ramps up the recording level, along with a voice-balancing algorithm to balance between loud and soft voices.

There is the 4Gb on-board storage but the Olympus has an SDHC card slot so you can record to SD cards and have separate SD cards for each project you are working on. The 4Gb on-board storage can allow for 850 hours of lowest-quality recording (WMA 8kbps mono). There is a high-quality PCM recording option along with the microphones having a 70Hz-20KHz frequency range that may get you by for basic live-music recording needs like recording a child singing or playing the piano. The battery can run for 29 hours recording on a single charge which will give you room for some of the big audio note-taking projects.

Personally, I would like to see future generations of this recorder also have Bluetooth A2DP or DLNA-over-Wi-Fi playback abilities so you can play the recorder through the new crop of wireless speakers for a larger room-filling sound yet have a wireless link. Similarly, a model with an external microphone input or line-level input could come in handy if the goal is to obtain a better recording from a PA system’s microphone. The Wi-Fi functionality could also be augmented with direct support for PassPoint-enabled Wi-Fi hotspots because of the prevalence of hotspots at meeting venues and hotels.

But what I see of this is a cutting-edge voice recorder that offers functionality that wouldn’t be offered on this class of device.

Android comes to a pair of headphones near you

Article

Streamz Reveals Android-based Smart Headphones | Tom’s Hardware

My Comments

Denon UrbanRaver AH-D320 headphones

Headphones like these could become like the current crop of smartwatches

Streamz are exhibiting a proof-of-concept headphone system that is effectively the headphone equivalent to a smartwatch. Here, these headphones have the Android operating system and an app platform along with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity to provide access to online and network-hosted music sources.

They will be managed via a control-surface app for most regular-computing and mobile-computing platforms in a similar vein to what Samsung, Sony and others are doing for their smartphones. As well, they maintain their own 4Gb onboard storage and a microSDHC card slot for additional storage.

One of the goals provided by these headphones is to provide hi-fi-quality digital-analogue converters in the headphones where the DAC in these headphones works to CD-quality (or should I say DAT-quality) 2-channel 48khz 16-bit standards along with hi-fi-grade drivers and amplifiers.

Being the first product of its kind, there will be issues with compatibility with other “smart headphone” software and the headphones missing certain functions like the ability to exploit Wi-Fi Passpoint technology. Similarly, as far as I know, they aren’t really a stereo headset with a built-in microphone which you can use also for communications purposes.

It is an example of increasing the functionality in the peripheral devices that augment a smartphone’s operation leading them to become standalone smart devices rather than become totally dependent on other devices.

Now DLNA is officially part of the WiFi Direct personal network

Article

WiFi Direct and DLNA get friendly, make streaming media a little bit easier — Engadget

My Comments

Just lately, the media-streaming use case has been brought to the WiFi Direct personal-area network as a competitor to the Bluetooth A2DP / AVRCP media-streaming applications.

There is an important fact that any WiFi-capable DLNA device could be a client device in this network setup as long as the host computer or smartphone is WiFi-Direct capable and running DLNA-compliant media management software. This could mean that your Intel WiDi laptop could be set to play video on that Samsung Smart TV or music on the Sony CMT-MX750Ni without needing to use an established WiFi router or access point.

What I see about WiFi Direct is that it is effectively being run as an alternative to Bluetooth for the personal-area network or standards-based peripheral link. But I am not sure whether it will succeed due to heavy emphasis by industry on the use of Bluetooth for this application and little consumer promotion of WiFi Direct capabilities.

First device to use Wi-Fi technology for host-peripheral connection

Article

HP Intros The First Wi-Fi Mouse For Your PC | eHomeUpgrade

From the horse’s mouth

HP Introduces Wireless PC Accessories to Enhance the Computing Experience

Click here to play YouTube video

My Comments

This mouse is the first to use the Wi-Fi technology as a “personal area network” i.e. to use a network technology to connect peripherals to a host computer. At the moment it requires the host computer to run Windows 7 and implement the “virtual network adaptor” technology in its Wi-Fi chipset.

Furthermore, the host computer needs also to run a device-monitor applet supplied by HP with this mouse. This whole functionality could be improved through the use of code being integrated in Windows 7.

This mouse is expected to have a 9 month battery life which is meant to be longer than with devices that run current Bluetooth technology. I would see that as a coup for Wi-Fi when it comes to applications ranging from mice and keyboards to other “sensor and control” applications like barcode readers used in business; remote controls or health-monitor devices. As well, if the chipsets used in this mouse are implemented in smartphones, PMP / MID devices (iPod Touch, etc) or tablet computers, this could help with improving device runtime when they are used with Wi-Fi networks.

As far as the software is concerned, I would like to have HP avoid “reinventing the wheel” for Wi-Fi mice, keyboards and similar peripherals by making use of “class drivers” that have been defined for USB or Bluetooth human-interface devices.

There is one question that could be asked about this device as in whether it could work over the regular wireless network using the network’s router or access point and sending the data back to the host computer via that local area network, rather than the host PC’s wireless adaptor being virtualised as an access point. This may be of concern with people who run a desktop computer that doesn’t have integrated Wi-Fi but is connected to a the network via Ethernet or HomePlug and this network has a Wi-Fi segment serviced by a wireless router or access point.

A similar setup has been achieved with the myRemote Android app which converts an Android smartphone in to a mouse or remote control for a computer. This one uses the regular wireless network and requires knowledge of the host computer’s IP address and that computer has to run a monitor program downloaded from the myRemote developer’s Web site.

Ozmo’s low-power Wi-Fi technology now with real silicon proof-of-concept

Articles

News articles

Ozmo’s WiFi PAN available Q4, is this the end of Bluetooth’s reign of terror? – Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Ozmo Devices Announces Revolutionary Solution Powering World’s First Wi-Fi Mouse and Keyboard

Related Articles in this site

The Wi-Fi Personal Area Network is getting closer

Ultra-Low-Power Wireless Networking

My comments and questions

Previously I have covered the topic of WiFi technology being used as a “personal area network” for a computer, which comprises of peripheral devices like mice and keyboards communicating to a particular computer via the WiFi technology. rather than that technology being used to transfer data between computers and other devices in a local area network. What has happened is that Ozmo have come up with a real chipset for use in these devices that can use this medium as well as run for a  long time on batteries. At the same time, Ozmo had built reference designs of wireless mice and keyboards that use this technology to communicate with their host devices.

One main question that I have about Ozmo’s effort is whether the same technology can be applied to devices that link directly to a Wi-Fi local area network’s access point rather than a particular computer? One main application that I see here with this technology would be Wi-Fi as a sensor / control network medium with devices like those that Ekahau had made as part of their Wi-Fi-driven real-time location technology, such as the pager tag which I had talked about in this site previously. Another application would be Internet radios, Wi-Fi-connected speakers and similar multimedia terminals that would be able to work on batteries as well as digital cameras that can upload to network storage or Internet sites or present to DLNA terminals without a severe penalty on battery life.

Another issue would be for a dedicated-function device like a set-top box or games console to support this kind of technology, whether as part of integrated Wi-Fi LAN functionality or as a Wi-Fi PAN setup as an alternative to Bluetooth or infra-red as a way of connecting peripherals, especially control peripherals.

It would be very interesting to see what comes of this technology once the silicon becomes fully available.

Windows 7 – How it will benefit the small business and work-home laptop users

There have been some significant advances in Windows 7 that benefit the small business and the mobile laptop users. This includes people who use their computers for both their work use and home / community use.

Location Aware Printing for “work-home” laptops

If you run Windows 7 Professional or above on your laptop, this operating system has another feature to support the “work-home” laptop. It is in the form of “Location Aware Printing” where the default printer is determined based on which network the computer is connected to. The network can be determined by factors like the domain Windows is associated with, the SSID of a wireless network or the MAC of the Internet Gateway or DHCP Server that it gets its IP address from.

The printer can be a network printer that exists on the network like the HP OfficeJet at your workplace or your Epson WiFi-enabled all-in-one at home, a locally-connected printer like your Canon portable USB printer or a software-based virtual printer like your fax software’s “print-to-fax” function or “print-to-PDF” software.

At the moment, there isn’t ready support for handling location-aware printing in locations where there are many printers in the same facility, such as the typical workplace or educational institution with its many rooms.

Inherent support for mobile broadband services

Windows 7 has inherent support for 3G wireless broadband services thus eliminating the need to run operator-provided software to use the 3G modem. It also caters for laptops that have integrated 3G modems, which is a feature becoming more common with units that are supplied through mobile-phone outlets. In some cases, you may not need to install any software provided by the 3G provider to use wireless broadband Internet service.

This is similar to when Microsoft implemented Dial Up Networking in Windows 95 and users didn’t have to run any other software to get online with their dial-up Internet service.

Wi-Fi Wireless Flexibility for the business partner and hotspot surfer

Windows 7 has improved the Wi-Fi wireless infrastructure thus allowing a Wi-Fi equipped computer with an appropriate hardware driver for its wireless card to do more tricks. It can become a wireless-wireless LAN bridge which can allow for such things as running Wi-Fi devices that can’t go beyond regular WPA2-PSK authentication and don’t have an easy-to-use Web browser with networks that implement WPA2-Enterprise authentication at workplaces or Web-based authentication at hotspots. A good use for this could be for a business partner to take pictures with his Wi-Fi digital camera and upload them to his laptop or a site worker who wants to play his Roberts Stream 202 Internet radio at a wireless hotspot just by using his laptop (which will alert him to new work) as a gateway. It can also allow for “bonding” of multiple Wi-Fi signals for greater throughput, which can come in handy with multi-access-point networks.

Improved business network functionality

The Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate computer has improved business network functionality, which can come in handy with corporate or business-partner networks. One feature that I like is “network-specific” security that accounts for VPN and DirectAccess network setups. Here, you can set up a “domain-driven” business network profile for the VPN tunnel while you have a “private-network” security rule that applies to your home network or a “public-network” security rule that applies to public networks like wireless hotspots. This still allows business-driven network tools like system management tools or desktop-based MIS “dashboards” to operate “through the tunnel” with your computer being secure enough for the network you are in.

Speaking of DirectAccess, this is an improved IPv6-IPSec VPN replacement provided with Windows 7 Ultimate that does away with the need for extra weight associated with a lot of VPN software. The software sets up a separate IPv6 path to the DirectAccess server that your employer or business partner provides and makes the access to business resources more transparent. This function will require the use of a Windows Server 2008 R2 box installed at the workplace by your employer or IT contractor and your computer to run Windows 7 Ultimate.

Conclusion

This series of Windows 7 articles shows how your Windows-based computer and network can be improved when you deploy Windows 7.

Windows 7 – What does it mean for multimedia and the home media network

Improved sound-reproduction infrastructure

Some of you may use two or more sound cards in your computer; such as using the sound circuitry that is part of your motherboad as well as an aftermarket sound card. Windows 7 caters for that by allowing you to relegate a particular sound subsystem to a particular program or activity. A common use would be to use a Bluetooth headset for Skype and related VoIP communications, gaming taunts and similar applications while you have your music playing through the main speakers. Similar you could connect a “good” sound card to a good sound system for recording and playback while the onboard sound infrastructure can be used for system sounds.

Even the ability to send digital audio signals to home-theatre equipment via the HDMI port has been improved. It includes the ability to pass the high-definition audio streams from BluRay and similar applications as a raw bitstream. It will also provide the multiple-sound-device functionality as mentioned previously with HDMI audio setups that use a dedicated sound infrastructure rather than feeding an SP-DIF audio bitstream from the computer’s main sound card.

As well, there is functionality that permits the music or video sound to be reduced in volume whenever a VoIP or similar call comes in even if the call goes through a different sound device, which makes life easier when you take these calls using the computer.

DirectX and Gaming

DirectX in Windows 7 has been taken up to version 11 and this has brought forward a lot of improvements as far as computer games go. This also includes a lot of work “under the bonnet” to improve game responsiveness with the screen and sound and bring up PC gaming to current-generation console level.s

Streamlined network management

The network management functions are similar to what Windows Vista users have expected in the Network And Sharing Center, But this interface has been streamlined and made easier to use. The “full map” is still available and you can gain access to shared resources or UPnP-provided device management pages when you click on the various devices.

HomeGroup

This feature is a way of establishing a “circle of trust” within a home network when it comes to sharing resources around that network. This is based on a computer-generated password that is used across the HomeGroup to authenticate all of the computers on the network to the resource pool. At the moment, this only works across Windows 7 boxes on the network, but it may be worth keeping an eye out for Microsoft and third-party downloads that allow Windows 2000 / XP / Vista, Macintosh and Linux boxes to work in with a HomeGroup setup.

This is another way that Microsoft implemented a practice commonly associated with locks and keys, Here, the identifying factor that only allows the lock to work with particular keys is already determined by the tumblers that are integrated in the lock’s mechanism and these tumblers are configured to work that way either by the manufacturer or by a locksmith when you have the lock rekeyed.

The first instance of this was with Windows Connect Now, which was implemented in Windows XP Service Pack 2 as a way of configuring a highly-secure wireless network. Here, the WPA-PSK passphrase was determined randomly by Windows Connect Now and used as part of a “configuration manifest” file to be transferred to routers and other computers using a USB memory key. This was extended to Windows Vista through the WPA-PSK passphrase being uploaded to a compliant wireless router using an Ethernet connection, and was integrated in to Wireless Protected Setup which is implemented as part of Windows Vista Service Pack 2.

Another advantage provided with HomeGroup is that it can work with “work-home” laptops that move between a domain-managed business network and a home network. HomeGroup can also cater for other small networks, because there is the option to share particular resources with particular users as you were able to do son with any Windows-based CIFS network.

Improved DLNA support

Windows Media Player 12, which is part of the Windows 7 distribution or, in some cases, available as a free download from Microsoft, has DLNA built in to its ecosystem. This doesn’t just stop at sharing media files with DLNA / UPnP AV media devices or streaming media files from other DLNA / UPnP AV media servers like NAS boxes. It allows you to “push” content to DLNA / UPnP AV media devices that present themselves as “MediaRenderer” devices. This is typically provided in the form of the “Play To” right-click shortcut for multimedia files.

Remote Media Streaming

You can stream content from one Windows 7 computer to another over the Internet as long as you use the same identifier, like a Windows Live ID. with each of them. This can be useful for situations like temporary accommodation like hotels, holiday homes or serviced apartments where you may have your computer at home running and you may want to play media at your temporary location. I have discussed this feature before on this blog and have raised issues regarding VPN operation and the computer that is pulling the media being able to serve it to DLNA-compliant media hardware on its local network.

Inherent support for current digital-TV standards and Internet TV

Windows 7 provides its Media Center application with inherent operating-system support for currently-deployed digital-TV standards so there isn’t much need for TV tuner card manufacturers to supply software to work with the current standards. As well, this operating system provides improved support for “over-the-top” Internet TV services that may be released in your country. In some cases, this may do away with the need for the coaxial TV cable to the computer or the need to sign up to cable services full of “fodder channels” to gain access to the “good channels”.

Next article in the series will touch on how Windows 7 will benefit the small business and the work-home laptop.

The Wi-Fi Personal Area Network is getting closer

Blogs and News Articles

Wi-Fi Alliance Peers into the Future with Ad Hoc Replacement | Wi-Fi Net News

Wi-Fi Gets Even Better | Wi-Fi Planet

Wi-fi to get a whole lot better | BBC News – Technology

Wi-Fi Direct : un sérieux concurrent pour le Bluetooth | DegroupNews (France)

From the horse’s mouth

http://www.wi-fi.org/news_articles.php?f=media_news&news_id=909

My comments

A while ago, I had mentioned in my blog about Intel and Ozmo designing chipsets that support a Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) personal area network. As well, Microsoft had built support for this kind of activity in to Windows 7 so the operating system can manage these networks if the computer’s chipset has inherent support for this. Now, the Wi-Fi Alliance are defining the “Wi-Fi Direct” standard that allows the establishment of these personal-area networks. They have also said that the “Wi-Fi Direct” personal-area network can be catered for on some existing equipment through the use of a driver or firmware update downloaded from the manufacturer’s site.

Wi-Fi Personal-Area Network concept diagram

Wi-Fi Personal-Area Network concept diagram

A Wi-Fi personal-area network is based around a computer, typically a laptop general-purpose computer, providing a single low-power Wi-Fi service set for a small number of devices while being able to link with an existing Wi-Fi service set using the same Wi-Fi networking chipset. The computer is essentially acting as though it is a wireless router with a Wi-Fi backhaul.

One main near-term benefit of operating a Wi-Fi personal-area network is to use a Wi-Fi-enabled device that doesn’t have the full screen, keyboard and Web browser, like a digital camera or Internet radio at most wireless hotspots which typically require you to establish your session through a Web page. Similarly, you can do network-based activities like transfer files, make your music library available to your DLNA-capable media equipment or engage in multi-player multi-machine gaming while using a public Wi-Fi network like a wireless hotspot.

The main benefit of this method beyond using the classic “Ad-hoc” mode that is part of the 802.11a/b/g/n standards. The “ad-hoc” setup often provided poor security and was very unstable, especially if it was being used to transfer large amounts of data like files between colleagues’ laptop computers.

This technology has also been designed to suit all classes of network deployment, ranging from home and small-business networks to large corporation and government networks. The needs of a large corporation or government department with sensitive intellectual assets have been taken care of including the ability for the access points in these networks to detect Wi-Fi Direct networks and, where policy dictates, to shut down these networks. There is only one security fear that I have in that the technology could be used to create an “evil-twin” rogue access point at a wireless hotspot. The way I would mitigate this problem would be to limit the power of a Wi-Fi Direct network and give hotspots the ability to detect these networks. Further still, I would support the use of SSL-style verification mechanisms being part of the SSID beacons in enterprise and hotspot networks as mentioned in my article on keeping the WiFi public hotspot industry safe.

Some of the computing press see the technology as a competitor to Bluetooth especially when it comes to linking devices with general-purpose computers. This is although Bluetooth have established small-size low-power chipsets for integration into peripheral devices like headsets and mice. It may also be seen as a chance for companies to work on low-power small-size Wi-Fi radio chips for use in these kind of devices, which can also benefit devices that deal with Wi-Fi on a LAN perspective like Internet-enabled consumer electronics.

Also, if the pundits see that this technology is going to work for human-interface devices (keyboards, mice, remote controls, game controllers, etc) and similar applications, they need to have this concept developed and proven across an IP subnet. This is because Wi-Fi is simply being used as one of many physical network media for IP networks; and there haven’t been any device classes and application-layer protocols established for human-interface devices, sensors and similar applications to operate across these networks.

Once this technology is worked out properly, I would see Wi-Fi Direct being an enabler for network activities involving Internet-based consumer electronics or working alongside a colleague rather than being another wireless medium for keyboards and mice.