Posted 10/01/09 at 09:30:20 PM by Ryan Whitwam

After years of seeing draft-n wireless products, the IEEE finally ratified the standard this summer. Now the Wi-Fi Alliance has created a new certification program complete with new logos. "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n builds on the success of our draft-n certification program and marks a point of maturity in 802.11n technology," said Edgar Figueroa, Executive Director of The Wi-Fi Alliance.

The new Wi-Fi certification program includes all the requirements from the draft standard, with some additional optional features. The optional features include support for transmission of up to three spatial streams, STBC encoding to increase reliability, A-MPDU packet aggregation, and channel coexistence for the 40MHz operation in the 2.4GHz band.

The new, longer logo shows all the standards that a device supports. The new certification program also allows products to indicate if they support optional features. The new logos should even show up on devices that were previously draft-n, as many were certified for the full standard.

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Posted 10/01/09 at 07:20:24 PM by Jason Barry

The folks over at the University of Utah are working on using wireless networking equipment to see through walls. Yep, they are trying to turn your wifi network into an investigative x-ray machine.

Well, it is slightly more complicated than that. They set up a 34-node wireless network and used principals similar to sonar to aggregate the movement of objects behind physical objects. You can practically hear the excitement from all the spy-happy teenagers. Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari’s intentions were much more altruistic.

Obviously, privacy is a concern. But let’s face it, you’ve got nothing to hide so long as you aren’t a terrorist, hostage wrangler, or scantily clad getting out of the shower.

More details about why they did it after the jump.

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Posted 06/24/08 at 06:04:07 PM by Mark Edward Soper

D-Link's new DIR-628 offers support for 802.11n 5GHz as well as 2.4GHz support with a street price of around $100. 5GHz support enables 802.11n networks to escape the channel congestion inherent in 2.4GHz networks (where only three of the 11 channels theoretically available do not overlap) and achieve faster throughput through the use of double-width (40MHz) channels.  Find out what's included, as well as what features hit the cutting room floor to help the DIR-628 make its price point.

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Posted 07/25/07 at 10:37:21 PM by By Mark Soper

With Gigabit Ethernet storage devices abounding, it's time to look for routers with faster ports.

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