Wireless networking without paying The Man, man So you want wireless networking, but you don’t want to hand over patent fees and licence money to the nasty megacorporations? Qi Hardware, the company responsible for the Ben Nanonote, has created a USB dongle offering wireless networking on open-sourced hardware conforming to the 6LoWPAN standard from as little as £25 …
XMAN, you've totally missed the reason for this technology. Its for hardware hackers who are making their own open source wireless comms, its not a cheap mass produced wifi style dongle!.
From the article "Qi has created cheap hardware, using an off-the-shelf AVR microcontroller, which can be modified and easily integrated into bigger projects."
But If I, as a consumer, can buy a usb wifi dongle for 4 quid then surely someone buying them in bulk for whatever they're making could get them even cheaper? The licensing is already sorted by the seller of the wifi adapter, right? Or is that not the case? Would additional licensing by required?
6LoWPAN is intended for a different set of applications than wifi - low power, low bandwidth uses such as home automation or smart metering. One example mooted was that each individual light bulb (probably LED lamp) could have an IPv6 address to allow it to be controlled directly via a home automation system.
but why the fuck would you WANT to have each bulb have it's own IP... I can almost see each fixture having an IP, ALMOST. And where do you intend to get the power for the transmitter? oh that's right, from your savings over a twisty-bulb.
So more expensive then my already expensive LEDs, less power efficient, and ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT.
but why the fuck would you WANT to have each bulb have it's own IP... I can almost see each fixture having an IP, ALMOST. And where do you intend to get the power for the transmitter? oh that's right, from your savings over a twisty-bulb.
So more expensive then my already expensive LEDs, less power efficient, and ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT
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Do people have to explain things explicitly before people fire off on anything these days ?
It was an EXAMPLE only and actually could still provide some power saving benefits anyway. Contolled lighting, powersaving mode in daylight/dusk, moving around the house
LED Lights are still using watts of power while these IP controlling chips are in the mW bracket.
As to the rest of the home automation or smart metering argument thats a bit of a no brainer as a use.
Try a google...
You must realize that home automation at the BULB level is just idiotic. Like I said, for the fixture maybe. I'm not even convinced THAT level is required. You really don't need anything more then to the switch.
Google is not a supplement for actually THINKING. It's an idiotic example.
Your brain is worth a try, engage it.
"So you want wireless networking, but you don’t want to hand over patent fees and licence money to the nasty megacorporations?"
It may be Friday and weekend beers only hours away, but this whole article takes a needlessly puerile tone. With the megacorporations suing each other over everything from wireless technology fragments to the colour of their latest gadgets, there's a real need for people to go their own way and not immediately be sued into oblivion by some company trying to make a buck off every instance of someone rubbing up against their line of business or touching upon a phrase in some piece of paper from a portfolio they bought in a corporate fire-sale.
So what if people want to develop their own sustainable alternatives rather than sucking the flavour of the month down the pipe of some corporation whose roadmap will tell you what you are allowed to have? Sheesh! Just go and browse the shelves in PC World if you can't accept people actually doing their own thing.
Which was also totally unencumbered by patents, had the most liberal of copyrights and was initially adopted by a small bunch of geeks and hobbyists. Seem to remember they called it TCP/IP or the Internet or something like that. Wonder whatever happened to it ? Can't imagine that without corporate IP lawyers buzzing all over it like flies round a turd it would have got very far.
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