WiFi Direct To kill Bluetooth?

With the increasing usage of digital media content like photos, videos and music, file transfer across devices has almost become a part of our daily lives. Now in current times if you want to have a file transferred across a device wirelessly  the choice  you have is Bluetooth, WiFi and in some cases 3G. The easiest way is through bluetooth, Just search the device and send the file but its quite slow. Wi-Fi is a lot faster but you need to add the device to your Wi-Fi network first, so it becomes quite cumbersome if you have a new device like your friends cell phone or something and if you don't have a Wi-Fi router you cannot do a file transfer.

That's about to change in the near future. Wi-Fi Alliance the trade association that promotes Wireless LAN technology and certifies products to certain standards of interoperability announced it new Groundbreaking Wi-Fi Direct technology.

Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance Said

"We designed Wi-Fi Direct to unleash a wide variety of applications which require device connections, but do not need the internet or even a traditional network,".  "Wi-Fi Direct empowers users to connect devices - when, where and how they want to, and our certification program delivers products that work well together, regardless of the brand."

What that means is the fact that Wi-Fi can be used just like Bluetooth, with added features like long range and high speed. What more important is that Wi-Fi direct certified devices will be able to connect with older Wi-Fi devices as well. So if you buy a Wi-Fi direct enable mobile phone you will be able to send music pictures and other digital content to your Wi-Fi enabled laptop, PC etc without a hitch.

Unlike Bluetooth where security is a bit of concern, Wi-Fi direct provides with high end WPA2 security protections, and bring typical Wi-Fi throughput and range.

The first devices to get Wi-Fi direct Certification are:

  * Realtek RTL8192CE-VA4 HM92C00 PCIe mini card

  * Broadcom BCM43224 Dual-Band 802.11n 2x2 MIMO PCIe Half Mini Card 

  * Atheros XSPAN®   Dual-band 802.11n PCIe Mini Card (AR928x)

  * Broadcom BCM43224 Dual-Band 802.11n 2x2 MIMO PCIe Half Mini Card

  * Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6200

  * Ralink MIMObility 802.11n 2x2 PCIe Half Mini Card

This is a great leap in Wireless technology. Wireless File sharing in the near future will be more fun than pain. Plus with more application and games that will be developed around this technology with time, it will just add more fun to the whole wireless experience.

 

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