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Friday, January 10, 2003
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Tim Higgins reports that Ubicom is adding wireless repeater functionality. Working closely with Agere Systems, their Wireless Distribution System (WDS) protocol, will be compatible with products based on Agere Systems' chipsets. Ubicom's IP2022 is also used Linksys' popular WET11 Wireless Ethernet Bridge, as well as other popular consumer networking products.
Tim Higgins has the definitive guide to repeaters and bridging. Repeaters eliminate the need to run wires to remote access points. They "repeat" a Wi-Fi signal from a remote "master". It can lower the cost (and complexity) of "neighborhood clouds" although individual throughput is reduced since they all share the same channel.
Intersil and Ubicom demonstrated the world's first 802.11g Access Point at Comdex last year. At CES this year, Ubicom demonstrated a Stand-Alone Repeater AP & an AP/Bridge in a design that's about the size of a Compact Flash card. It supports all of Intersil's PRISM 802.11b chipsets (II, 2.5, 3).
Ubicom says they have developed a new 802.11x software module for their IP2022 microprocessor, that allows 802.1x to operate natively on the Ubicom IP2022 processor. The platform enables an access point to perform authentication pass-through for a Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) authentication server on an 802.11b network.
As a result, the network can rapidly identify and verify users to ensure authorized network access. Ubicom's ipAuthenticator module supports all methods of the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP), including EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS and EAP-MD5.
Ubicom supplies processors and software that is integrated into Access Points made by other manufacturers.
| Self-contained Wireless Zone | |
The Wireless Zone is a self-contained web server in a small box. It delivers website information and e-business presentations using its built-in Wi-Fi but does not connect to the internet.
Updates and maintenance are easily performed using the integrated CD-ROM or by FTP services. The Wireless Zone system utilizes Linux and Apache software and can be carried in a laptop bag. All that is required for operation is 110-volt AC power.
A website can be conveniently accessible to multiple users with Wi-Fi equipped PDAs, laptops or desktops. Applications include sales presentation, product brochures, specification sheets, database information or kiosks for community services.
Put one in the lobby.
The Wireless Zone, with its built-in webserver might link to Tablet PCs on the wall. Gadget lovers might like HP's new wireless Digital Media Center ($300). Using a standard remote control, you can browse through music, photos and video stored on your Media Center PC ($1300). Of course you could do about the same thing with a TiVo, couldn't you. Other kiosk options might include a wireless smart display ($1000) linked to a $500 desktop.
Personal Telco's Clone Army Box might do essentially the same thing as the Wireless Zone, essentially for free. It runs NoCatAuth, a captive portal software system. Pricing of the Wireless Zone is not immediately apparent.
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1:51:15 PM 
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You know something is happening when a level headed IT guru writes "It's about the evolution of our species toward shared consciousness"
Jon Udell writes....
Crossing the bridge of weak ties. Once upon a time (1998-1999) I wrote a book about software that could revolutionize how we communicate....
Ultimately, it's not about RSS any more than it was about NNTP. It's about the evolution of our species toward shared consciousness. When I started tinkering with the then-new Radio UserLand 8, about a year ago, I got fired up again with the vision that had inspired my book. I saw, in the emerging blogosphere, a next opportunity to reach critical mass -- by which I mean a world in which transparency and information-sharing are the rule rather than the exception.
It's interesting to compare the experience of writing my book in 1998-99, and writing this blog in 2002-03. The output is roughly equal -- about 130,000 words in each case. But the experiences were completely different. Writing the book was hard and lonely. Writing this blog has been a joy. Feedback is immediate; serendipity is abundant; everything flows. In a delicious irony, my LibraryLookup project has reconnected me, more powerfully than ever, to the world of books, and made what had seemed stale come alive again.
So why worry? We inhabitants of the blogosphere are living in a kind of a ghetto. My social networking experiment last May demonstrated how clubby this world is, and I concluded the writeup with a plea for diversity:
There is a certain sameness to a lot of the blogrolls I see. Many of those first attracted to blogging share interests in software and networking. To a first approximation, blogspace today is a community of like-minded people. But we're starting to see hives emerge. Among Radio bloggers, for example, clusters of lawyers and academics have appeared.
10:05:25 AM
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I installed the pingback radio tool and (incorrectly) expected to be able monitor citations of my own posts.
No. The Radio pingback tool sends pings. It doesn't receive them, and certainly doesn't display the results. As Simon Fell explained to me,
Nope, its just the client side. The server side is complicated by
Radio's static rendering architecture. The only real solution will be
for Userland to add a pingback server to RCS, like how the comments
server works. I don't have any plans to do this. The pingbacks on my
blog are a ASP.NET system i wrote, as i have ASP.NET support where i
host my blog.
Cheers,
Simon
www.pocketsoap.com
9:50:26 AM
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Two significant notices by way of Rick Dobbs on the Wireless-World@yahoogroups.com email group. I think Gas stations as access points is a very big idea...
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:57:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Rick Dobbs <liquidblues@yahoo.com>;
Subject: Mesh Networks Gain Backers
Even as 802.11b wireless networks become more and more popular, efforts are
under way to extend their communications range. Mesh networking-a merger of two
or more multipoint wireless networks- is emerging as one solution. Just as
several PCs can form a peer-to-peer network, a group of multipoint wireless
networks can form a single shared infrastructure.
Florida startup MeshNetworks is shipping the architectural components needed to
build "a self-forming, self-healing wireless mesh, where user devices become
the network." MeshNetworks' technologies use a technique the company calls
hopping to seek out central devices in a networked office that are connected to
wireless access points, using the devices as relay points. By contrast, a
standard 802.11b network has a range of only a few hundred feet, so networking
an environment of any significant size requires a liberal distribution of
access points.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,811306,00.asp
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 12:02:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Rick Dobbs <liquidblues@yahoo.com>;
Subject: Deploying "ZapLane" Public Access Networks at Conoco/Phillip's Circle K Convenience Stores, Powered by Toshiba
Okay, some how I missed this some time ago. But getting wi-fi access at Unocal
and Circle K is pretty interesting. Free!
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WorkingWild Inc. and Toshiba's Computer Systems Group (CSG) today announced a
strategic alliance to roll out wireless broadband access in Conoco/Phillip's
(NYSE:COP - News) Circle K Convenience stores.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/021118/180616_1.html
9:30:04 AM
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© Copyright
2003
Jon Schull.
Last update:
10/23/03; 7:40:38 PM.
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