We've seen oodles of dual-mode handsets, but none quite like this. Rather than boasting two radios, two keyboards or two faces, NEC's N-06A -- which is gearing up to debut on NTT DoCoMo over in Japan -- actually has two purposes. Aside from making calls on the carrier's FOMA network, the phone can actually double as a wireless access point when AP Mode is enabled. The handset packs a cutting-edge Atheros AR6002 module, which enables handsets to operate in infrastructure mode, the primary wireless connectivity framework employed in access points, routers, laptops and other WLAN devices. In other words, your netbook (and seven other WiFi-enabled devices) can hop online via your handset, and it's far easier than the wacky tethering methods we deal with today. Other specs include an 8.1 megapixel camera, HSDPA / WLAN models and a miraculous 3.2-inch touchscreen with an 854 x 480 resolution. There's no mention of a price or ship date for the handset, but more than that, we're thirsty for details on when this chipset will be featured in a handset that's headed to US soil. Check the full release after the break.

Yes folks, we're back to the drawing board. Again. With a litany of wireless technologies floundering about and struggling to find real traction in the market, a cadre of market powerhouses have joined up to take wireless streaming to the next level -- or so they say, anyway. The newly formed WiGig Alliance aims to use unlicensed 60GHz waves in order to stream just about anything you can think of: HD video, images, phone contacts, instant messages, audio, etc. This "unified" approach differs from most other alternatives, which generally pick one niche (1080p video, for instance) and stick to it. If the more than 15 technology firms have their collective druthers, the WiGig specification will find its way into everything from set-top-boxes to telephones to home stereos, ready and willing to stream to other WiGig-enabled devices at a moment's notice.

The group consists of household names such as Microsoft, LG, Dell, Samsung, Marvell, Nokia, NEC, Intel and Broadcom (just to name a few), and when we spoke to executives about the announcement, they told us that plans were to have the specification available to member organizations in Q4 of this year. The sad part is that this likely means we won't see shipping products with the WiGig logo for another year after that -- if we're lucky. We can't argue that some stability would be nice in this volatile sector; after all, we've been waiting for promising products like Belkin's FlyWire to ship for well over a year. The execs we spoke with couldn't speak on behalf of the partner firms in terms of what WiGig products were looming on the horizon, but as we alluded to earlier, the playing field is wide open. Honestly, we'd love for this to take off and finally give high-bandwidth wireless applications the support it needs to flourish, but as we've seen over the past few years, the road ahead ain't an easy one to walk. The full release is after the break.

The rumors were true, and today's the day that the Bluetooth SIG gets official with the latest, greatest version of Bluetooth. Bluetooth 3.0 + HS, as it'll be called, promises to be markedly faster than prior iterations thanks to the reliance on 802.11, which is the same protocol used by WiFi modules, routers, etc. The new standard obviously catapults Bluetooth into a new dimension; rather than being good for nothing more than sending images from one phone to another or syncing a fitness module to a DAP, v3.0 is nimble enough to handle camcorder-to-HDTV, PC-to-PMP and UMPC-to-printer transfers. In fact, the inclusion of the 802.11 Protocol Adaptation Layer (PAL) provides increased throughput of data transfers "at the approximate rate of 24Mbps." We had sit-downs with Mike Foley (executive director of the Bluetooth SIG) and Atheros CTO Bill McFarland in order to find out a few more details about plans for the protocol -- if you're eager to hear what they had to say, not to mention see a demonstration of BT 3.0 at work, follow us past the break.

In a move that will undoubtedly increase its street cred among technophiles and tinkerers alike, Atheros announced that it's releasing the specs to allow open source drivers for its ATH5K and ATH9K chip families. The move comes after Atheros first released some open source drivers for newer 802.11n chipsets and now the company is finally opening up its HAL (hardware abstraction layer) to developers, even using Linux as the reference public code base. No word on when any of this stuff will be released, but rest assured, we'll be on the lookout for more info -- we're sure the hackers out there are champing at the bit.

You'll probably recall Atheros' name from the rundown of Draft 2.0 802.11n gear mentioned just a week ago, but now the firm is getting official with its bundle of refreshed pre-N gear. The new AR9001 family of chipset solutions builds upon the existing XSPAN offerings, and is reportedly compliant with the latest IEEE draft of 802.11n. Primarily aiming for SMB and Enterprise markets, the outfit is doling out a number of AR9001AP access points / router SoCs that "integrate its 802.11n MAC / baseband and 400MHz Wireless Network Processor (WNPU) into a single chip." On the consumer front, the AR9001U sect presents the "world's first dual-band capable 802.11n USB chipset," and also includes the company's first 1x2 MIMO configuration. Unsurprisingly, pricing details on all these goodies are still up in the air, but Atheros claims that second-generation AR9001 items are currently sampling to customers and should hit " full volume production" in Q3 of this year.

[Via PCWorld]

Setting up a secure wireless network is no easy task, due in part to the array of confusing, conflicting, and sometimes even downright ineffectual (we're looking at you, WEP) solutions to the problem. Enter the WiFi Alliance's WiFi Protected Setup, or WPS, a program slated for release later this year that aims to ease the process of securing home users' wireless networks and is intended to play nice with any WiFi-enabled consumer electronic device (say, a DAP or a camera), as long as the device passes a mandatory lab test first. Tapping into the home user's "I don't care how it works, as long as it does" mentality, WPS will make secure connections as simple as pushing a button on the WiFi-enabled device and the router that it is connecting to, although a PIN-based method is also part of the specification. The new system is similar to Buffalo Technology's Airstation One-Touch Secure System, however, unlike AOSS, WPS is an entirely non-proprietary specification that will fit right into the heterogeneous world of WiFi. Lets just hope wireless chipset and consumer electronics manufacturers get behind WPS and show some love to the peeps that don't know their WEPs from their wallets.

[Via The Register]

Toshiba has gone a bit "lappy happy" this week, announcing yet another 15.4-inch machine to join the two new notebooks and nine new configurations of current models that we spotted earlier. This time around, the company is targeting corporate IT buyers looking for durability on the cheap, playing up the new Tecra A8's suite of EasyGuard technology -- which features the same hard drive and keyboard protection, biometric security, and one-touch presentation button found in the consumer-level LifeSmart package. As far as specs go, you can choose from among a number of setups sporting either Celeron M or Core Duo processors, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, between 60GB and 100GB worth of storage, CD/DVD combo drive or DVD SuperMulti drive, and 802.11b/g WiFi from Atheros or 802.11a/b/g from Intel. Available immediately, these models range from $700 for the Celeron M config to $1,349 for a rig packing a T2400 CPU and that dual-layer burner.

[Via Mobile Tech Review]

All of the controversy, delays, and performance concerns surrounding the IEEE's notorious pre-802.11n wireless networking spec haven't deterred TRENDnet from being the latest to announce a new family of products based on the non-final version of the MIMO-powered, next-gen WiFi standard. As you'll recall, there's been no small amount of concern that pre-n gear won't play nicely with legacy 802.11a/b/g equipment, which is why TRENDnet goes it out of its way to stress the "good neighbor behavior" exhibited by its WPA and SPI-protected TEW-631BRP router and TEW-621PC PC card -- both of which use Atheros' XSPAN technology to supposedly ensure interoperability in mixed-network environments. TRENDnet promises real-world speeds of between 150Mbps and 180Mbps , which in theory should be enough to stream around a little HD content and download some torrents while you're chatting on your wireless VoIP handset about that great post you're reading on Engadget. Both new products, along with a $150 access point and a $100 PCI adapter, are scheduled to ship on July 25th, with the router priced at $130 and the card going for an even $100.