Monday 20 July 2009

Intel’s PAN WiFi to Compete With Bluetooth

Intel along with a wireless startup will be demonstrating a new Personal Area Networking (PAN) technology based on WiFi (802.11x) this week. The WiFi-spinoff technology, developed by Ozmo Devices (Palo Alto, California) will allow short range, high bandwidth communication to several Ozmo-enabled peripherals at once.

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That is like being connected to multiple Bluetooth devices at once, but instead of Bluetooth it would be 802.11x WiFi. That would eliminate the need for Bluetooth devices, and according to analyst Johnathan Gruber, PAN technology "will definitely be a threat to Bluetooth technology."

Ozmo based devices are slated to be released sometime in 2009 and will include Ozmo enabled headphones, keyboards, stereo speakers and mobile phones.

The Ozmo transceiver is basically a WiFi transmitter that consumes the same amount of energy as a Bluetooth chipset, making it a competing standard to Bluetooth PANs. Intel is set to release software for Centrino based laptops sometime in the future, allowing interoperability between existing Centrino WiFi chipsets and the new PAN Ozmo-based devices.

The demonstration will be held this week at the Computex Tradeshow in Taipei.

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