This blog has been "retired." Current Wireless Industry news can be found at:

The Wireless Report

The following blogs are now part of The Wireless Report.

• The Unofficial Bluetooth Weblog
• The RFID Weblog
• The Ultra Wideband Weblog
• The WiFi Weblog
• The WiMax Weblog
• The WIreless Weblog
• The Wireless Development Weblog

This week's vote which dissolved the IEEE Task Group that was working to ratify a single UWB standard has certainly cause a few ripples in the wireless technology circles, but it seems the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) isn't really fazed by what's been going on.

Earlier last year, it looked like the SIG and UWB supporters were looking for ways to join the technologies together for various applications, and things seemed to point to something of substance was going to occur sometime this year. The SIG says it is currently studying how UWB and Bluetooth can co-exist, especially in power consumption and mobile devices.

With the various UWB spec groups now going off in different directions, it'll be interesting to see if one of them will strike an agreement with the SIG or the Bluetooth group will look to play every hand possible and work with all of them.

With the release of three new Bluetooth-enabled handsets--the BH-800, the BH-900, and the BH-200--Nokia is predicting that the Bluetooth mobile phone market will rise a whopping 65% this year. Of course, they would surely love to get the lion's share of that number. It is expected that roughly 220 million Bluetooth handsets will be sold this year, up from 133 million in 2005.

Nokia might be slightly overreaching with their prediction, only because WiFi is still so scorching hot that the consumer market may be preoccupied with connecting at hotspots or their citywide network. Nevertheless, Bluetooth has become virtually a ubiquitous technology, and it has become pretty much a standard in most new cellphones anyway.

With terrestrial radio suffering a big loss with the move of Howard Stern to satellite radio next week, it looks like many companies are looking for ways to attract folks who have not yet made the commitment to satellite but are searching for alternatives. To that end, Motorola will be introducing its iRadio subscription service at this week's CES event. The service will allow users to listen to music anywhere from their cellphones at a cost of about $7 to $10 a month.

The service is launching 435 commercial-free radio channels, including a wide variety of music genres. (There's even one channel called "Sex, Drugs, & Rock 'N' Roll.) In addition, subscribers can purchase optional Bluetooth accessories to extend iRadio to their virtually any car stereo system.

Again, it's debatable as to whether or not music-enabled cellphones will succeed in the marketplace over the long haul, but give the wireless providers props for trying, if anything else.

We're taking a break to enjoy the holiday today, but we wanted to pass along our best Christmas wishes to you and yours. We value your support and thank you for your continued readership of this blog as well as the other members of the Weblogs Inc. network. We look forward to serving you in the new year.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

As more businesses deploy wireless devices for their workforce which come equipped with more connectivity options, the more chances exist that data can be compromised or that malware could be introduced into a network. A new solution from Safend, Safend Protector, aims to provide endpoint security by controlling data access from the physical ports of all enterprise endpoints, such as USB, FireWire, WiFi, Bluetooth, Infrared (IrDA), and CD/DVDs.

The solution is designed to give IT managers the ability to control which users can connect which peripheral devices across all communication ports. It also is compliant with recent legislation, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, that were enacted to creat tougher new data privacy standards and accountability and also mentions the need to control removable storage media.

You've got to give credit to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) in doing their best to keep themselves in the limelight and not have their technology shunted off to the side. The SIG announced that it intends to work closely with other wireless technologies, including WiFi, Near Field Communication (NFC), and Ultra Wideband (UWB) in order to "identify synergies."

In other words folks, the SIG is doing everything possible to get their member companies to link up with other wireless manufacturers so that Bluetooth doesn't grow "stale" and become obsolete in a few years.

According to the SIG, here is where they think Bluetooth can parther with the aforementioned wireless technologies:

• For WiFi, the potential for collaboration would include home gateways and media centers.

• For NFC, a possible collaboration may involve device pairing, such as the identification process between two Bluetooth-enabled products when they first connect.

• For UWB, it would involve usage scenarios requiring higher data throughput. Remember that supporters of UWB and the SIG announced their intentions to work together earlier this year, and the SIG has its UWB Market Requirement Document completed with resulting spec expected to be introduced in 2007.

It's a smart move by the SIG. 2004 was a huge year for Bluetooth, and it's become so ubiquitous that virtually every new mobile phone has it embedded within it. There's nothing wrong in looking for new ways to get Bluetooth into the forefront. Whether there will be compatibility between these various wireless technologies remains to be seen.

The newest additon to our expanding blog network is DS Fanboy, which covers everything you ever want to know about Nintendo DS. No need to go anywere else for information—our friends there have it all covered. Check them out!

Manufacturers of chips embedded into cellphones are saying that as technology processes improve, as well as better recognition of what consumers really want, could very well result in handsets being priced at $20 or lower within the next two years.

With this will come the realization that lower-cost cellphones will not have all the full-blodded features that the top-of-the-line smartphones have, but there is a large group of existing and potential cellphone users throughout the world who would happily settle for a handset that will reliably allow them to just make and receive calls. (Contrary to what some may think, many people just want to use their cellphones to talk, and nothing else. Hard to believe, I know, but it's the truth!)

According to one industry association, there are about 3.5 billion people worldwide that live in coverage areas that can't afford a cellphone.As a result, manufacturers are saying they will be able to produce "basic" phones at a lower cost to them which will translate into lower costs for consumers. Companies such as Infineon, Motorola, and Philips have stated they are looking to place the key functions of a mobile phone embedded into a single chipset at a cost to them of about $5.

From the folks who bring you joystiq comes our latest blog for fans of World of Warcraft, WoWinsider.com brings you the latest news and information about this popular game. Check it out by visiting their website!

A new public website designed to be a one-stop shop for network administrators and IT managers that lists potential threats to wireless networks and lists ways to protect against them has been announced by Network Chemistry Inc. Wireless Vulnerabilities & Exploits (WVe) features descriptions of listed threats and, with the input of the site's editorial board, steps on how to keep them away from networks. According to the site's administrators, anyone can submit a threat listing to the editorial board, who then review it and post it live to the site if they deem it credible.

The threats are classified in two ways:

• Vulnerabilities—defined as a piece of a system or protocol that can be exploited to use the system in manner other than it was designed for. Examples include an unauthorized entity to pose as an authorized entity or information from authorized entities to be intercepted by or disclosed to an unauthorized entity

• Exploits—a technique, such as a program, piece of code, set of steps, or hardware device, which takes advantage of one or more vulnerabilities.

The RAZR v3 cellphone from Motorola has drawn quite a bit of attention since its introduction late last year. So far, over 12 million units have been sold, and it has boosted the company's bottom line, to say the least.

Electronic Design devotes some ink to what makes the RAZR phone so special, so if you're a technophile and really want to get the "guts" of the device, this is as good a place as any to start.

Interesting little story about how supporters of UWB and WiMax are seeking to get their respective technologies embedded into unlicensed mobile access (UMA)-based handsets. UMA is designed to allow a cellphone to use technologies such as GSM, WiFi, and Bluetooth to make calls and automatically switches between networks in order to offer users the more cost-effective connection. A number of companies including BT and Motorola are thinking about testing how effectively UWB and WiMax could work with UMA-enabled phones. Trials could begin early next year.

Is your life based around the Sony Playstation Portable? If so, then our new blog, PSP Fanboy, is for you. 'Nuff said.

The Weblogs, Inc. network features over 100 independent, unfiltered bloggers producing over 1,000 blog posts a week across over 75 industry-leading blogs. Each week we ask our bloggers to choose their top posts, which we bring to you in one easy-to-read weekly post. You'll find links to the hottest posts from the past week after the jump including a call for Digital Photography bloggers, the announcement of a brand new fanboy from Joystiq, and an invisible (almost) browser. Enjoy!