Wireless USB revolution

[Bob Crabtree]

It's only every once in a while that a new technology comes along and revolutionises the way we use computers or makes our computing lives a whole lot better.

Wireless networking (WiFi) was one such technology. Universal Serial Bus (USB) was another.

And, in the next few months, the two are set to start coming together in the near self-explanatory form of Wireless USB – a technology that promises to give wireless access to self-powered USB devices, including printers, scanners, hard drives, optical-disc burners and MP3 players.

Check out this HEXUS.headline and share with us your thoughts on the potential delights of Wireless USB and high-speed WiFi.

[Rys]

The absolute worst thing about my office and workspaces is the tangle of cables I have to maintain. Provided it comes to fruition, this is one technology that I'll happily invest in.

[Bob Crabtree]

Don't even mention cables!

Nominally, with Wireless USB, though, the number of cables will actually increase by one - for the mains adaptor for the Wireless USB hub that wasn't included in the mix before.

But, judging by my experience with cabling, the number I have will almost definitely decrease.

That's because there should be fewer orphan cables entangled round the back of PCs. I'm always plugging USB stuff in and out of different PCs and having done that a few times after the last tidy up find I've again got a bunch of cables entangled with one another that have nothing attached at either end.

Figuring out which end goes with which can take a bit of time and, if I'm in a hurry, I just leave them as is and get another USB cable out of a drawer.

Result - the creeping growth of the number of entangled cables.

Factor in similar happenings with composite video, L/R audio, S-video and FireWire (four different sorts) leads - and the different flavours of mains cable, plus some seemingly identical power leads from USB bricks (but with each brick putting out a different amount of juice) - and it's no wonder that the area behind my PCs looks just a little untidy!

So, as well as Wireless USB, roll on Wireless FireWire (apparently it is coming); Wireless A/V leads; and, best of all (aaargh!!!!) Wireless Mains.

Mind you, on the A/V front, perhaps the format war over new combined video/audio leads for Hi-Def monitors and TV sets might lessen the clutter a few years down the line. Initially, though, it's just going to add two new flavours of cable to the mix!

[Veles]

Looks cool, but I would prefer it to be bluetooth. I always found the length of USB cables annoying because I had too little desk space to put the printer on as well as the PC but always found the cables too short to put the printer anywhere else. I'm searching for a cheap bluetooth adapter for my printer to go with my newly aquired bluetooth dongle but alas, none below £50.

One thing I find annoying about these wireless devices is they all come with dongles to use them with. It's just stupid, every time you want a wireless/bluetooth adapter for something you have to fork out an extra £10 on top for the dongle that comes with it.

[Apex]

I don't see how this will work with scanners as they rely on the twain interface and iirc no one as ever got this to work in a network/wireless way.....

But other then that this could prove very usefull.......

[sanchezxxx]

I want one of these just to be able to have my printer on the otheside of the room, i'm sure ther'll be hundreds of people from honk kong selling them on ebay before long.

[FatalSaviour]

Looks cool, but I would prefer it to be bluetooth. I always found the length of USB cables annoying because I had too little desk space to put the printer on as well as the PC but always found the cables too short to put the printer anywhere else. I'm searching for a cheap bluetooth adapter for my printer to go with my newly aquired bluetooth dongle but alas, none below £50.

One thing I find annoying about these wireless devices is they all come with dongles to use them with. It's just stupid, every time you want a wireless/bluetooth adapter for something you have to fork out an extra £10 on top for the dongle that comes with it.

Problem with bluetooth (v1 anyway) is that you have a maximum throughput of about 1Mbps, which is gonna be painful for printing any large files/transferring any documents to a USB HDD etc.

[autopilot]

Great article

Been looking forward to this for a while. But a powered one is a must. Looking forward to sticking the printer under the stairs

[dave87]

I don't see how this will work with scanners as they rely on the twain interface and iirc no one as ever got this to work in a network/wireless way.....

But other then that this could prove very usefull.......

HP have managed it - its in their Photosmart PSC printers - over wireless and wired networks.

Dave

[Bob Crabtree]

HP have managed it - its in their Photosmart PSC printers - over wireless and wired networks.

Dave

Apex,

He tell no lie - and you can read about how this works (though not the technology behind it) by downloading the manual for one such HP model (the Photosmart 3310 All-in-One) from this page.

[Funkstar]

I don't see why TWAIN can't be made to work over any interface really. Surely it is just an interface to the scanner driver, and it is the driver sorts out how it communicates with the device.

True enough, if you attach a fulti function printer to a third party network print server, the scanner functions will not work, but then that is because the driver for the device are not written to use the network port etc.

We have a colour copier at work with a network interface and can scan a bunch of pages through the sheet feeder from my laptop. it's ace