New ‘Cliffside’ technology supports simultaneous simple Bluetooth-style connection to multiple devices within a three metre radius.
We’ve got wireless LANs home and the office, plus wireless wide-area networks (WWANs, aka 3G broadband) to blanket a city and beyond. Now get ready for wireless personal area networks – WPANs – using low-power Wi-Fi to connect up to eight devices simultaneously to your notebook.
It’s currently codenamed ‘Cliffside’ and will be woven into Centrino 2 laptops when the current Montevina platform receives a mid-life refresh in the middle of 2009.
The technology merges the hassle-free pairing and operation Bluetooth with the high data speeds of Wi-Fi to replace cables as well as cumbersome Wi-Fi connection routines. During a demonstration at Intel’s IDF in Taipei a photo snapped by a Nikon Wi-Fi camera was beamed to a Cliffside-enabled notebook and then sent to a Lexmark Wi-Fi printer. Also on show was Wi-Fi projector enjoying the same cable-free connection to the laptop.
This can be done today of course, but the process of setting up the devices and sending files between them is made far simpler and all the device connections can be concurrent with the laptop remaining online through a Wi-Fi router.
Each Cliffside device is initially paired to the laptop, which then remembers the partnership and can automatically establish the connection when the device is within range.
While Cliffside will remain restricted to the forthcoming ‘Shirley Peak’ Wi-Fi module in the mid-2009 Centrino 2 notebooks, it’s expected that many current Wi-Fi devices such as cameras, printers, projectors and game consoles will be made compatible through a simple firmware update.
“Because we use the existing Wi-Fi that is already inside the system, we can communicate with consumer electronics devices without paying any extra money” explains Mooly Eden, Intel Vice President and General Manager for the company’s Mobile Platforms Group. “There’s fancy stuff like taking a picture (on your camera) and downloading it, but just try to imagine a simple thing – like in your house you don’t need the cables between your notebooks and your printers.”
“More and more the notebook is turning out to be the centre of your universe” Eden told APC. “In the living room you have your TV screen and the question is how you match the two in order to be able to stream video, and I believe Cliffside will be behind this great experience of connecting the notebook and the consumer electronics devices around it. I would like to make it simple like Bluetooth – you click and you connect. It must be simple to connect because when we talk about consumers, simplicity is the magic word.”
Central to Cliffside is technology developed by Californian company
Ozmo Devices, which counts Intel among its major investors. The company’s Web site describes its project as developing “innovative Wi-Fi compatible communication technologies that deliver cost-effective wireless personal area network connectivity for battery-operated devices. The Ozmo solution is ultra-low power and highly integrated, making it ideal for wireless peripheral applications that require a small form factor and long battery life.” Ozmo’s piece of the action comes from selling Cliffside-compatible wireless silicon modules to device manufacturers.
David Flynn attended IDF Taipei 2008 as a guest of Intel.