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CALL it Bluetooth on steroids. Ultra-wideband (UWB), a new wireless technology similar to - but faster than - Bluetooth, is coming to Singapore and promises to banish messy cables from the living room. With Singapore becoming an early adopter of this technology, tech fans will be able to hook up all manner of electronic gadgets like cameras, televisions and speakers wirelessly in four to five years. The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) said yesterday that Singapore, by following international standards such as those set by Europe's Electronic Communications Committee, will make it easy for UWB gadgets to be sold here. When IDA rules kick in by year end, any made-in-Europe device can be put on shelves here without a licence, making it cheaper to import and sell. This, the IDA believes, will make UWB popular with tech-savvy users here. By going with well-known standards, it also hopes to persuade companies here to develop UWB devices. Quoting figures from research firm In-Stat, Mr Leong Keng Thai, IDA deputy chief executive, estimated that 300 million UWB chipsets - the chips and circuit boards inside UWB gadgets - will be sold worldwide by 2011. He said cellphones and laptops will run on UWB as well, making it as common as other wireless technologies now. Like Bluetooth, which is used in headsets to link cellphones wirelessly, UWB can hook up devices within short ranges of a few metres. But UWB, working at higher speeds, can also send video over the air. A camera equipped with UWB, likely to be available in four to five years' time, can send videos wirelessly to a similarly equipped TV set. The main problem with UWB, as in the early days of Bluetooth, is that chipsets are still expensive. Mr Thomas Cooper, senior vice-president for worldwide sales at chipmaker Artimi, said chipsets cost about US$20 (S$30) now, and it will take about four to five years for prices to fall to US$5, the level deemed cheap enough for the mass market. He told The Straits Times: 'We've been waiting for the technology to mature for a few years and at least now we can say the technology is ready.' siewtha@sph.com.sg
Hooking everything up IN THE next few years, ultra-wideband (UWB) technology can be used to connect a wide range of devices, replacing messy cables that snake around a living room. Sending videos to a TV Instead of figuring out the right cables to hook up your camera to a TV set, a UWB-equipped camera lets you send your holiday videos to the big screen wirelessly with a few clicks. Sending PowerPoint slides to a projector All that fuss you go through to connect a laptop to a projector in the office can be done away with if your gadgets come with UWB. Instead of peering at the ports on your laptop, putting a presentation on the wall will be as easy as connecting to a wireless network. Hooking up an MP3 player Whether you are connecting your MP3 player to a pair of speakers on your desk or in your car, UWB can send over the audio wirelessly instead of relying on audio cables. With enough bandwidth, UWB can help cut the wire clutter without loss of audio quality.
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