Word: wirelessed
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...peek under your desk. See that snarl of cables, leads, paper clips and lost printouts cascading from the butt end of your PC? Well, etch the ugly sight into your memory for nostalgic reference. Computer cables are going the way of eight-tracks, pet rocks and typewriters. A wireless revolution is seeping into our homes, schools, offices and gathering points very quietly, and setting up what appears to be a face-off between two competing technical standards...
...transmits data 10 times that distance and at much more than 100 times the rate of a dial-up modem, making it an ideal technology for linking computers to one another and to the Net in a wireless local-area network, or WLAN. It also has the advantage of being unequivocally here and relatively easy to use. All you need is a specialized PC card (for as low as $90) that slips into a slot in your computer, and an access point or base station (available for less than $300) capable of linking several computers. The downside? Higher power means...
Manufacturers hoping to boost a sagging PC market are racing to equip computers for wireless networking. "It's considered something of vast importance, given the economic slowdown," says International Data Corp. (IDC) analyst Jason Smolek. Compaq, Gateway and Dell are all selling computers with built-in wireless networking capabilities. IBM launched a top-line Wi-Fi equipped laptop named ThinkPad T23 in late July that offers enhanced security features. Apple, which virtually pioneered wireless home networking when it launched AirPort in 1999, is ahead of the pack. All its computers have been WLAN-ready since then...
...time soon. Unfortunately, the two standards interfere with each other physically, if not in the market. Both occupy the 2.4-GHz spectrum, which is already polluted by cordless phones and microwave ovens. One possible solution is a new wireless LAN standard--cleverly named 802.11a--that accesses the 5-GHz band of the radio spectrum and races data along at 54 Mbps. Problem is, it can't understand a thing 802.11b says to it. The first products built on 802.11a are due out soon. If these don't pan out, something else that does soon will. Either...
...Hope Over Experience Your Clairvoyant's Calling By KAY JOHNSON The wireless revolution has been a bust for a lot of folks: we're having no success getting American Pie 2 over our Palm Pilots. To find the real visionaries these days, you've got to check out niche operators. In Vietnam, authorities warn that wireless-rigged clairvoyants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are duping the distraught families of MIA soldiers from the Vietnam War. Their pitch: by combining their sixth sense with cellular technology, they can help families find the remains of their lost kin. After...