wi-fi

The new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard can't get more official than this.

The Wi-Fi Alliance today launched its Wi-Fi Certified ac certification program, paving the way for the new standard to be easily adopted and interoperate among different hardware vendors.

This is significant since the new standard offers up to three times the wireless speed of the existing and ever-popular Wireless-N (802.11n) standard, enabling support for even the most demanding applications such as Ultra HD, 4K video, multimedia, and fast file data transfer within the wireless home network.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance's recent poll, the number … Read more

WiFi Photo Transfer makes the process of moving images between iPhone and desktop as easy as a few quick clicks, streamlining a once-frustrating process. For whatever reason, moving images between an iOS device and your computer has long been an unnecessarily complicated process. For those with a Mac it was okay, but for PC-users, in iTunes, it required a third-party software or direct transfer of the images. WiFi Photo Transfer removes that extra layer of difficulty and allows you to move photos with a few, easy-to-follow steps.

WiFi Photo Transfer makes it possible to bypass transfer issues and simply access … Read more

Taiwan is making it easy for foreign tourists to stay connected.

The government recently announced that international travelers to the country will be able to access free Wi-Fi at 4,400 hot spots at indoor public spaces throughout the country. By showing a passport, tourists can open an account on the 1Mbps iTaiwan Wi-Fi network that's found at major tourist spots, transportation hubs, cultural establishments, and government offices, covering much of the island nation.

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Comcast is making it even easier for its broadband subscribers to access the Internet outside the confines of their homes.

For the past couple of years, the company, along with several other cable operators, has been building out a Wi-Fi network in public areas, such as train platforms and in small businesses such as cafes and retail locations, to allow its broadband customers mobile access to the Internet at no additional charge.

On Monday, the company will make two announcements that will expand this network.

The first is the launch of the new home-based, neighborhood hot-spot initiative, in which subscribers … Read more

Memory and storage are probably the two most commonly upgraded components on laptop computers. They're easy to upgrade and have an immediate impact on system performance. Wi-Fi cards are upgraded less frequently, but upgrading them can have a dramatic impact on performance as well, with greater range and faster throughput.

In this tutorial, we're going to upgrade the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 inside a Toshiba U925t Ultrabook, with an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235. The Intel 2230 card is a good midrange card, but it lacks dual-band support, so we're going to replace it with the Intel 6235, … Read more

One of the most closed-off countries in the world has finally started to roll out Internet for its citizens. The Cuban government has officially opened 118 public Internet centers across the country, according to the Associated Press.

Up until now, computers with Internet access were sparse on the island. Besides a few universities and employers offering access, some of the only places to get online were tourist hotels that charged up to $8 an hour for erratic Wi-Fi, according to the Associated Press.

The Cuban government estimates that only 2.9 percent of the country's citizens get online, according … Read more

Power line networking -- the technology that enables electrical wiring to transfer data -- is about to get a lot faster.

Broadcom announced on Monday what it claims to be the industry's first HomePlug AV2 power line system-on-a-chips (SoCs) that deliver up to 1.5Gbps data speed. That's about three times the speed of the top existing power line devices.

HomePlug AV2 is the next-generation power line standard that uses an extended frequency band of up to 86MHz, while HomePlug AV was limited to 30MHz. In addition, HomePlug AV2 supports Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) -- a technology … Read more

Soon wireless subscribers won't even have to think about signing on to a Wi-Fi hot spot. New standards that will be included in the latest generation of products will take the headache out of Wi-Fi.

Millions of wireless customers access public Wi-Fi hot spots every day. Some people get free access to Wi-Fi through their mobile operator and use the networks to avoid going over their data caps. Others subscribe to Wi-Fi services to get access to higher-speed data wherever it's available. Whether you use free Wi-Fi or you subscribe to a service, getting on to whatever Wi-Fi … Read more

How can the Internet be brought to areas that have no infrastructure for high-speed wireless? Beam the Wi-Fi networks down from flying objects, of course.

Google is reportedly working on creating wireless networks for more remote parts of the world, such as countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, with sky-bound balloons and blimps, according to Wired.

Dubbed "high-altitude platforms," these mechanisms will reportedly be able to connect roughly a billion more people to the Internet worldwide, according to Wired. The blimps signals are said to be able to reach people in areas that are hundreds of square … Read more