I just got back from an interesting meeting with Broadcom about the general state of the mobile industry and there were some interesting topics that came up. The company also showed off a few quick demos of WiFi Direct and its location technology and these should be makings its way into phones and tablets in the near future.
The WiFi Direct technology is something we’ve covered plenty of times in the past but it should finally be landing in multiple devices later this year. What’s cool about WiFi Direct is that it will let you make a device-to-device connection without having another network – think of it like Bluetooth but with more range and bandwidth.
Broadcom demonstrated WiFi Direct and its capabilities by using a high-definition television and a Motorola Xoom. The Android tablet doesn’t have WiFi Direct built in, so they used the HDMI port connected to a specific box that wirelessly connected to a receiver plugged in to the TV.
The result was that you could have your tablet’s screen show up on the TV with relatively no latency. We watched a racing game where you could watch the TV but still control it with the tablet without incident. Obviously, this has many implications for future devices.
We also saw a brief demonstration of the company’s upcoming location technology and this could boost future location-based services. Of course, it can use GPS but the company also showed off its ability to utilize WiFi access points to get a good idea of where you are, even if you’re indoors. The possibilities for app makers are endless.