Sony To Make Protocol To Compete With Bluetooth

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080107-sonys-transferjet-to-take-on-bluetooth.html">http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080107-sonys-transferjet-to-take-on-bluetooth.html</a><br /><br /><i>"Never one to settle for an open standard when the opportunity to push a proprietary alternative presents itself, Sony has announced that it will wade into the next-generation short-range interconnect wars with a proprietary new wireless spec called "TransferJet." Sony's proposed TransferJet spec has a physical peak transmission rate of 560Mbps and would appear to compete directly with short- and medium-range ultrawideband-based offerings like wireless USB (W-USB) and the next generation of Bluetooth technology. But in spite of any similarities to either W-USB or Bluetooth 3.0, both of which are based on the same WiMedia radio technology and promise transfer speeds in the 480Mbps range, Sony's TransferJet has some distinguishing characteristics that set it apart from the pack."</i><br /><br />That's awesome. All those users with Sony devices can talk to each other and swap Memory Sticks, isolating themselves from the rest of the portable electronic universe. Someone needs to hit Sony with a clue-stick. :roll:

[Dyvim]

You forgot about swapping UMD disks!:lol:

And Blu-Ray! Oh, snap, Blu-Ray's winning. Oh well. :cry:

[PetiteFlower]

I predict exactly four people will adopt this "standard"

I hate Sony. They even managed to break everything they did RIGHT with the PS2 when they introduced the PS3...no more backwards compatibility, and proprietory blu ray technology, YUCK! I'll be getting a wii instead, as soon as I can find one :)

I don't see how anyone can say blu-ray is "winning". Didn't they just lose an exclusive deal they had? I haven't gone HD yet so I'm not following it really closely, but I'm pretty sure the race is still going on. I'm confident the open standard is going to win out in the end, might just take a while.

I just don't understand how this makes good business sense, to keep trying the same crap, after as many times it's already failed. I wouldn't even count memory stick as a success, though it's as close as they've gotten, since people do use it. But Beta, Minidisc, etc? Come on, learn from your mistakes already!

[geosta]

And Blu-Ray! Oh, snap, Blu-Ray's winning. Oh well.

Come on, let's be fair. They were still owed by the media gods for that little Beta fiasco :D

The best part about Sony doing this all the time is that you keep getting opportunities to give people that 'Oh, you bought a Sony. Guess you didn't know any better' look. Man I love giving that look :devilboy:

[Underwater Mike]

I predict exactly four people will adopt this "standard"

I don't see how anyone can say blu-ray is "winning". Didn't they just lose an exclusive deal they had? I haven't gone HD yet so I'm not following it really closely, but I'm pretty sure the race is still going on. I'm confident the open standard is going to win out in the end, might just take a while.

Unless I missed something else, it was HD-DVD that just lost the exclusivity deal. That's why BR is "winning."

I still buy Sony audio and video equipment when it's best-in-class, but I won't touch a Sony-related computing device. In fact, my MIL needed help with her lappy a while back. Once I found out it was a VAIO, she was on her own. :devilboy:

[dannyoneill]

Sonys innovations are great, the memory sticks are smaller, this is faster but the problem is they dont open them up. They think by having something which is better than the rest is enough to get people to buy into the idea. But people dont want to pay more, they dont want to be limited to one make of device.

History has continued to prove that open is the way forward, its what the consumer and developers want.

They keep trying to do this, they want to find the next CD (the format which nets Philips $0.01 for every disk sold and makes them billions).

Sony, stope wasting your money on re-developing the wheel. Spend it on making better use of whats already on offer. Sure having a sony phone with some format you have to buy another sony phone to use it sounds great but lets be honest. It hasnt influenced my freinds purchase. they get what they want. Then mock me for buying some lame custom format.

Grrrr, you guys make me mad!

[Dyvim]

I still buy Sony audio and video equipment when it's best-in-class, but I won't touch a Sony-related computing device.
Exactly. I hate all their proprietary standards, but they do produce some nice electronics. e.g. I own a Sony HDTV from 2004. At the time I bought it, it's dual picture handling was just loads better than anything else in its price range (and still today is quite impressive). It's got a memory stick slot I've never used, but it's a great TV.

[Darren Behan]

Another reason never to buy a Sony PC...as if I needed one. As one who was stuck with a 128 Mb memory stick while CF &amp; SD cards hit the Gb range, I won't be going down that road again anytime soon. Twice the price and twice as long (at least) to get the same functionality. No thanks.

db

[Sven Johannsen]

That's a shame. IMHO Sony does some of the nicest designs. They don't really need to try and lock folks in with proprietary standards, (or clandestined root kits).

[Ed Hansberry]

Sonys innovations are great, the memory sticks are smaller, this is faster but the problem is they dont open them up.
Smaller than what? I have a friend that just got a Sony camera and he was talking about the size of the memory stick and how small it was. I showed him my 8GB micro-SD card and that put an end to that conversation real quick. :wink:

Plus, just how many memory stick cards are there. Memory Stick, Memory stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro, Magic Gate, Memory Stick Pro-HG, purple cards, white cards, blah blah blah. Who can keep up with all of that? Even the Memory Stick Micro, which I've never seen anyone actually own, is not as small as a micro-SD.

As for speed, not sure. I've never had a problem with taking pictures or watching video with my cards. I guess if we were talking solid state drives you might run databases off of, speed would be an issue, but personally, my cards (CF, MMC, SD, etc) have never caused problems because of speed issues. I suppose professoinal photographers with high speed cameras care, but most of them are using CF anyway, even in Sony cameras.

[Cybrid]

how small it was. I showed him my 8GB micro-SD card and that put an end to that conversation real quick. :wink: The Sony Ericsson multimedia phone my friend had used a 4Gb "M2?"...not much different than a microSD. I'll ask later....

And now the real reason Sony survives fiasco after fiasco
I work as management in a big box retail outlet. I get a call to the photo dept.

A lady had jammed her boyfriend's memory stick (the one that's half the size of normal) into the full size memory stick slot. It was now unretrievable.
Lady " Just get a paperclip and tape...that's how the girl at the other store did it..."
Internally I'm thinking "and you didn't learn your lesson the first time?..."
Having assesed her as being about as bright as a 40W lamp. I turn to her male companion..."Y'now these come with an adapter to fit the normal size slot" (like microSD and miniSD get read through the SD slot).
Lady "Oh, he knows nothing about stuff like this...It's his camera but I'm the techie ...I help him figure this stuff out..."
8O

[Fellwalker]

This is another reason why I will NOT buy Sony. Yes their kit is lovely, but they insist on making it proprietory. Then it does not easily interface with generic PC kit. They isolate themselves.

[Richard76]

As I read this intial post and the related replies, I couldn't wait to offer my sentiments on why I would never buy another Sony product. To sum it up in one word, proprietary comes to mind. And then, there is also the related issue of paying a major premium for that privilege.

However, as I type this, I am looking at my iPod and feeling the same way as I swore I would never buy an Apple product for the same reason. Although, to be fair to me, I did not technically "buy" this iPod as I used my American Express points.

And, add to this, the fact that I am typing this message on a Windows-based computer that I always use Microsoft programs (when I have a choice) because the software integrates so well with my Windows-based smartphones.

So, after giving this lots of thought, I am going to go away now. Forget everything you read in the first paragraph.

THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF-DISTRUCT IN 5 SECONDS......