Monday, January 14, 2008

What's "In The Air" At MacWorld? WiMax? Or Ultra-WideBand?

Arik writes:

The consensus appears to be that WiMax will be introduced in Apple notebooks, and the much-rumored ultra-portable product. WiMax, you’ll recall, is that next-generation wireless data connection technology that Intel so loves, and that Sprint has been testing under the name Xohm. It’s an interesting notion, and certainly plausible. But Wimax has had some setbacks of late, not the least of which was the parting of the ways between Sprint and Clearwire last year. As Valleywag notes, heading down the Wimax path would be a risky play for Apple. It could certainly be the type of move that sets the entire computer industry on a new course that the PC vendors are forced to follow. Or the service could suck, and the whole idea could conceivably backfire. Dan Frommer at AlleyInsider doubts the WiMax idea, and not unfairly.

There’s also a lot of chatter around streaming video for the iPhone, probably enabled via a Slingbox client for the iPhone. That would be something “in the air” too. Right? Sure. But given that SlingBox software is available for all the other major wireless platforms, from the Blackberry to the Symbian OS, this one is almost obvious.

But there’s another option. One of the rumor sites, Macmegasite suggested that the new wireless technology could be something called “Beam,” which it describes as file sharing technology that’s faster than Bluetooth. That got me to thinking, and suddenly while at the barber shop, a thought struck me: Could Apple be ready to deploy Ultra-Wideband technology? More after the jump.

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