Sony and Philips create a new wireless standard...

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-956779.html">http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-956779.html</a><br /><br />"Philips Electronics and Sony announced Thursday that they plan to work together on new wireless technology that will allow consumer devices to "talk" to each other." Oh goodie! Because IR and Bluetooth aren't enough.<br /><br />So, a bunch of people from Sony and Philips got around a table and said:<br />• We need something we can get licensing revenue from.<br />• It need to be very very short range - say, 6 inches.<br />• Speed isn't important, so 200kbps is fine.<br />• We need something we can get licensing revenue from.<br /><br />And Near Field Communication, or NFC was born. "NFC will allow data to be transferred over a wireless spectrum at 13.56MHz. Devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras, handhelds or personal computers will be able to "talk" within a range of 20 centimeters and at speeds of up to 212kbps." <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif" /> Someone just shoot me now. Thanks to Racer-X for the link.

[kaiden.1]

Sounds great; except sony (and I really love there stuff) is famous for doing the propietary thing with all of there stuff too. Which technically means that there is a 99% chance that only the sony stuff will be able to talk to each other. They never build anything that works universal. You have to buy their stuff in order for their technology to work. So I won't count on it. :roll: typical of sony!

[brntcrsp]

Another low bandwidth, short range, proprietary wireless protocol, eh? Sounds great! Where do I sign up?

[rlobrecht]

will be able to "talk" within a range of 20 centimeters and at speeds of up to 212kbps."

What's the point? 20 cm? That's less than a foot. My PDA is farther away from my laptop when they're sitting on my desk together. And my desktop is on the floor several feet away. They better be giving the chips away, or no one is going to want this.

[innersky]

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif Someone just shoot me now.

ok :2gunfire: :onfire:

yeah right. that's what the world has been waiting for, another proprietary short range wireless thing.

[Sven Johannsen]

One characteristic that sets NFC apart is that it needs no "permission" before making a connection between devices, he said. Bluetooth, on the other hand, pings a device to see if it wants to connect before going through with the coupling.


Oh yea, that's what I want. Instant Messages from every vending machine I get within 20cm of.

[moaske]

What's next ? PDA's with a 1"x0.5" screen....?...also pretty useless... :?

[Timothy Rapson]

No, get up and go to the TV and hold the PDA right next to it?

Maybe if I put the cell phone inside the pop machine shoot?

My watch can communicate with my keyfob car door opener if I put them both in my pocket together?

Open my garage if I stand on a ladder and get right next to the reciever?

There must be a reason Sony wants to do this, but I sure can't guess what it is.

Wait, wait, I could hold my digital camera next to a memory stick and it would automatically take money out of my bank account and put it into Sony's. That must be it.

[Ed Hansberry]

My watch can communicate with my keyfob car door opener if I put them both in my pocket together?
I'm not sure I want all this stuff talking to each other. They might start talking about me and play tricks. My keyfob decides not to work a few times and my watch is laughing his hands off. Never mind if they replace the IR ports in urinals with this stuff. Then it is talking to my watch. I don't want to know what they'd be talking about. 8O

[Jimmy Dodd]

The comments are pretty funny (esp. the urinal talking to your watch, though I try not to stick my watch within 20cm of the urinal, maybe you guys down in Chattanooga do that, eh Ed?).

I think the whole point of this technolgy is to let things like stero components talk to each other wirelessly. That way you can stack your components without dealing with the cable octopus that we have now.

[Ed Hansberry]

The comments are pretty funny (esp. the urinal talking to your watch, though I try not to stick my watch within 20cm of the urinal, maybe you guys down in Chattanooga do that, eh Ed?).
You go for distance or something? :eek: (Man I'm glad it's Friday... btw - I'm closer to Nashville)

[nirav28]

Right!!!!!!!!...now my pda is going to start flirting with a fax machine as i walk by it at the office and the fax machine is going to cheat on my pda by throwing some pickup lines at a wireless mouse. Just what I need, intelligent devices trying to create a social ecosystem around me.


Seriously though..I guess for a PAN (personal area network) this wouldn't be a bad thing. Something bluetooth promised us, but never actually delivered. In a way, I wouldn't mind having a device automatically discover and communicate with another device without the typical fuss a bluetooth setup has. I think technology should be Omnipotent like this. Imagine...being able to transfer a VCF address book/business card from your watch to another persons watch or cell phone just by shaking their hands or being in close proximity to them.

[Ed Hansberry]

Seriously though..I guess for a PAN (personal area network) this wouldn't be a bad thing. Something bluetooth promised us, but never actually delivered.
This wouldn't even work for a PAN. It is more than 20cm from your ear to a cell phone on your belt or pocket. This is a total joke. Can you imagine the spam retailers would try to send from the conveyor belts to your devices as you walked down the checkout?

[T-Will]

BwanaJim, that's what I was thinking, but is 212 kbps enough bandwidth for video and audio?

[Mark Johnson]

Betamax... MiniDisc... FireWire... now NFC... Oh the humanity of it all. I just can't bear to watch.

But seriously, the one major detail that was missing in the news reports was the issue of power consumption. As much as is pains me to suggest that Sony might be onto something here, I have to wonder if there might be some merit to this. If (BIG IF) they has managed to get an "order of magnitude" power reduction in the system compared to bluetooth, there might be some logic to it.

For example, I'd love to have a pager/watch that would have a bluetooth transmitter to get email. (There is an IBM prototype on www.linuxdevices.com that does this.) The 700kbps speed of bluetooth is actually higher than you'd need, and so is 200kbps. Also, my wristwatch *is* within 20cm of my keyboard whenever I'm typing so putting a hub in the keyboard or mouse might actually work.

Obviously people are planning these kinds of devices with bluetooth at this point (and I'm looking forward to them getting to market) but if the NFC power requirements were a lot lower, this might make battery powered devices much more practical.

I guess the real question is:
Just how much power difference is there between NFC and Bluetooth? and/or How much can bluetooth power consumption be cut? Does anyone know offhand just what the power requirements of the latest and best bluetooth transmitter chips are?

[st63z]

On a side topic, WHAT IS IT with Sony and Philips? They've been joined at the hip and holding hands for decades now. Pretty soon they'll be kissing :)

Though I actually like DVD+RW, but that's about it...

[Rudolf]

I'm GUESSING that this technology is not meant to compete with bluetooth or WiFi, but rather tries to cover a different area, where long range is actually a problem. Who would want a credit card that could be used in a 10-100m range? It's pretty dangerous. On the other hand the power consumption could be extremely low allowing it to integrate it even to credit cards and similar 'smart card' devices. Of course mobile phones and PDAs are possible candidates too if you carry them around always as they could be used instead of credit card...
One possible usecase: You go to a vending machine and hold your phone bringing into range. The machine can receive your phone number via short range wireless and you receive an SMS (or whatever will be then the cutting enge technology :D ) immediately. Confirming the SMS will substract the required amount from your mobile account...
or your mobile phone can unlock your front door if you wish... and endless other opportunities...

[Paul P]

Sorry if this is not relevant, but I posted this at brighthand yesterday:

http://www.seiko-instruments.co.jp/hppack/news/n01_news_detail2002_dgn.cfm?id=1485

http://k-tai.ascii24.com/k-tai/news/2002/09/05/images/images696050.jpg

bad translation............

[SD card type terminal ' AH-S101S '
' AH-S101S ', by the AirH " terminal of the SD card type which designates the PDA user as the target, production the SEIKO instruments (inc.). The communication facility which corresponds to the packet system of the 32kbps and the PIAFS system of the 64k/32kbps is built in. Size as for the 55×24mm and weight says cubic measure approximately 45%, weight approximately is 30%, with approximately 6g, the CF (the compact flash) in comparison with card type.]

[questionlp]

Betamax... MiniDisc... FireWire... now NFC... Oh the humanity of it all. I just can't bear to watch.

A couple of things... Apple has the trademark on FireWire, which is their implementation of the IEEE-1394 standard. Sony decided to avoid the FireWire trademark bit and issued iLink, which is a 4-pin version of IEEE-1394... meaning that it is compatible with any other IEEE-1394 device. Apple has recently dropped some of the hurdles of using the FireWire trademark and released reference drivers. So I wouldn't call FireWire a proprietary thing.

(Note: the next bit is going to be a biased as I am a happy owner of several Sony MiniDisc portable recorders and an MD home deck.) MiniDisc may not be popular here in the US, no thanks to Sony's poor marketing of the device and not aiming at what it should really be replacing... audio cassettes, but look at places in the EU and Japan. I personally like the fact that the later MD portables are quite small, can run for 12+ hours, and have great audio quality (I record tracks to MD from CD via digital SPDIF, not from MP3s so the quality is kept as high as possible), and MD discs are rather inexpensive and quite durable (yeah, they aren't as cheap as CD-RW... but I threw three MD discs across a room in a fit of rage once and it survived a dunk in water and smacking against a window sill. BTW - I also have an MP3 jukebox... but battery life really sucks and I don't trust the HD while driving some of the road roughs around here.

What I would consider "proprietary" is the Memory Stick format. Sure, there are several Memory Stick licensees, but it's rare to find a device with a Memory Stick slot that is a non-Sony device. Magic Gate is another (which I dread...). I'd personally go with SD over Memory Stick anyday :)

Just my $0.01 (one cent is for royalty and the rest of the $0.08 aren't free).

[jdhill]

For example, I'd love to have a pager/watch that would have a bluetooth transmitter to get email.
The Timex Internet Messenger watch has been available for about a year. The watch can receive pages and short e-mail messages using a standard paging network. Works very well actually.

[Ravenswing]

BwanaJim, that's what I was thinking, but is 212 kbps enough bandwidth for video and audio?

Audio, no problem. Audio & video, probably pushing your luck.

You'd definately lose quality over a wired connection, and you'd get more interference than with wires. I think people who buy stereo equipment in seperate units wouldn't be willing to put up with the loss of quality.

And 20cm is nowhere near enough for wireless speakers, which would be more useful.

Let's face it, April has come late this year.

[mookie123]

If the damned thing only has range of 20 cms, what's wrong with cable?

make a standard plug, and it would be that much faster, more robust, and doesn't eat up battery at all. I would rather buy and carry around a $4 cable that works with gazillion types of devices rather than Gee whiz wireless interface that only work with 2 models of toy from Sony, and 1 badly marketed soon to be discontinued toy from phillips.

but than gain standard cables and plud never makes money to Sony and phillips isn't it?

[jdhill]

Like I said when two camera makers recently proposed YASCF (Yet Another Storage Card Format), I hope this YAWDF (Yet Another Wireless Data Format) dies a quick and painful death !!!

[dmolden]

While Sony justly takes some heat for its proprietary use of the memory stick, I think you are missing the point of this particular communication technology. The idea is NOT to download information into your device, it is to allow you to use your mobile phone or your PDA in lieu of a credit card/bus pass when purchasing a cola or getting on mass transit. You do get that close to the machine in those cases. The idea of allowing it to bypass the 'permission' stage (my guess, admittedly) is to allow you to simply walk through the turnstyles at the train station without pausing to authorize the machine deducting your fare. Sort of like the autopay lanes on most toll roads in the United States.
This may not make much sense to someone in the US, but not having to carry another pass to get on another form of mass transit would be a great relief here in Japan.

Oh, and on a side note, I agree about the MiniDisk. It is a great, stable format (especially once you tack on the new LPMD recorders and players).

Dan Molden

[questionlp]

While Sony justly takes some heat for its proprietary use of the memory stick, I think you are missing the point of this particular communication technology. The idea is NOT to download information into your device, it is to allow you to use your mobile phone or your PDA in lieu of a credit card/bus pass when purchasing a cola or getting on mass transit. You do get that close to the machine in those cases. The idea of allowing it to bypass the 'permission' stage (my guess, admittedly) is to allow you to simply walk through the turnstyles at the train station without pausing to authorize the machine deducting your fare. Sort of like the autopay lanes on most toll roads in the United States.
This may not make much sense to someone in the US, but not having to carry another pass to get on another form of mass transit would be a great relief here in Japan.


I definitely agree that the near-range protocol doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a data transport method when we already have IR and Bluetooth. Both have their limitations and B/T does run on the same frequency as 802.11b/g, which is going to be quite interesting in some scenarios. The 20cm limitation is too short for things like authorization or the toll booth idea, as I don't want to smack into the gate if i go a wee bit too fast through it if I'm in a rush. I think if it does get off of the ground, it will probably be more successful in places like Japan, the EU, and other places that have a high population density.


Oh, and on a side note, I agree about the MiniDisk. It is a great, stable format (especially once you tack on the new LPMD recorders and players).

The latest portable MD recorder that I purchased (the Sony MZ-R909) has the MD-LP capability but not the NetMD capability. I decided to pass on the NetMD idea since I don't want to deal with the DRM layer and the fact that it has to decode the MP3 files (albeit at 256kbps) and re-encode it into ATRAC3 turns me off. Sure, the MP3 files that I have at 256kbps (ripped from my CDs) and they sound quite good (through my MP3 jukebox and the Sennheiser 570/580's) but there are some artifacts that are still somewhat audible that aren't as pronounced on the CD->MD version.

I'll live with the real-time recording as it gives me time to listen to the music while it records, plus I normally code, read or surf while waiting.

[Rob Alexander]

Sounds great; except sony (and I really love there stuff) is famous for doing the propietary thing with all of there stuff too. Which technically means that there is a 99% chance that only the sony stuff will be able to talk to each other. They never build anything that works universal. You have to buy their stuff in order for their technology to work. So I won't count on it. :roll: typical of sony!

In fairness to Sony (and I'm not really denying that they tend toward proprietary standards), my Sony VCR remote control talks to over 100 different brands/models of TV. When I first set it up, I looked up the code for Panasonic on a big multipage list, punched it in and it talks to my Panasonic TV just fine.

I love Sony's stuff too! I never set out with the idea that I'll necessarily buy Sony. But after looking at everything out there, I just always seem to come home with it.

[BoyWithPockets]

All this complaining, and I feel you guys just "dont get it".

The reason why it's only 20cm is because they DON'T want information to transmitted to unknow parties. We're talking about wireless payment, credit card info, and wireless keys here.

To get into my office I just wave my security card at the door to unlock it. The card doesn't even have to be taken from my wallet.

When I was vacationing in Hong Kong, the transit ticket/pass was also a close-wireless card that I wave to pay for fares and can also be used to buy items from vending machines and fast food joints like MacDonalds.

This is what it's for. These are the real competition, not Bluetooth or WiFi. One is meant to be a wireless USB of sorts ans the otehr is meant for wireless LAN. Why can't people understand that they don't compete, adn can all exists at the same time.

Just because you have an SUV, it doesn't make a truck or a small car useless.

[topps]

All this complaining, and I feel you guys just "dont get it".



Thank you to you and dmolden for your comments...yes, I did not get it at all and thought this to be a waste of bandwidth...that makes much more sense...noooow, I get it.