GiFi Gets Nasty with 5 Gbps Wireless Transfer Speed
Move over Bluetooth, your time in the spotlight could be coming to an end sooner than we thought. Researchers down under at Melbourne University in Australia have recently unveiled an entirely new short-range wireless data transfer technology that could be introduced as soon as next year. GiFi, as it has unfortunately been dubbed, utilizes a 5mm square chip and a 1mm wide antenna requiring less than 2 watts of power to transmit data wirelessly at distances comparable to Bluetooth. Bluetooth 3.0, however, which is currently being developed, will be limited to 480 Mbps while GiFi has already achieved speeds of up to 5 Gbps. On top of everything else, GiFi operates on the 60 GHz frequency band which is for the most part unused. Of course the possibilities are endless. Portable electronics, computers, home theater multimedia equipment; imagine your set top box being able to receive wireless streams at 5 Gbps! You might not have to imagine for very long if all goes well. GiFi could be ready for prime time in 2009 and with a cost-per-chip of approximately $10, it shouldn’t take very long to be widely adopted.
Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein is the Executive Editor of BGR. He has 10 years of industry experience, first in marketing and business development with two private Telcos, then as a writer and editor covering business, technology and telecommunications.
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