This a complete transcript of Macworld Podcast 55 : Wi - Fi certificate and iTV .
The theme of this podcast is Wi - Fi and my Edgar Albert Guest is Glenn Fleishman , a Wi - Fi expert and free-lance author who writes for numerous publication include Macworld , TidBITS , and the Seattle Times . And we are going to talk about Mac Wi - Fi security issues as well as the future of Wi - Fi , faster variant of Wi - Fi and how Wi - Fi and Apple ’s forthcoming iTV product might interact . Hi Glenn .
Glenn Fleishman : Hi Jason .
Jason : So , you were one of our first , if not our first , Macworld Podcast invitee , so it is smashing to have you back .
Glenn : Thank you . The first podcast was about Bluetooth 2.0 plus EDR because that was very exciting at the time .
Jason : red-hot , red-hot , hot . Well , I ’m promise you now and talking to you in your role as expert about all things Wi - Fi . If you would like to give a plug , you have an splendid WWW site , in which you give Wi - Fi networking news .
Glenn : And it ’s strangely calledWi - Fi Networking Newsbecause I like to be obvious .
Jason : Is n’t that interesting .
Glenn : It ’s a casual news reporting site . It has been great because when I started it about five years ago , I had no idea there would actually be enough news to account on day by day . There ’s so many dissimilar area , I acknowledge we are go to speak about Mac - specific one . There are so many different areas in which Wi - Fi and wide issue of wireless data . Every newspaper in the state has an clause about some kind of wireless data every daylight now , it seems .
Jason : It amazing how far we ’ve come since Apple employees were take the air through the aisle at Macworld Expo with those first iBooks , which was the first I ’d ever heard of Wi - Fi .
Glenn : Yes , when it was exciting to take the air around with a laptop computer and you ’re accommodate an iSight camera in one bridge player and doing wireless iChat . But now , it ’s incorporated and much simpler .
Jason : Yes , perfectly . So , the two topics that I want to bring in up with you , one , which we ’ll get to in a small flake , is the time to come of high speed Wi - Fi and how Apple ’s iTV may or may not be a part of that . But I wanted to embark on out with a subject that is fraught with complication and there ’s been a big grievous bodily harm opera about it . I require to verify that we do n’t descend too far down into the max opera , but basically there are these two guys , Maynor and Elich , is that right ?
Glenn : Yes , David Maynor and Johnny Ellch .
Jason : Yes , Maynor and Ellch . “ Johnny Cache ” I guess he calls himself . They were at a surety conference and did n’t publicly demonstrate , but played back a videotape of them basically hacking into a MacBook via a Wi - Fi joining . Is that a form of simplistic description of that ?
Glenn : Yes , and what ’s been confuse about the whole issue is that even that basic description is like “ How many proviso do we have about it ? ” I need to back up one second ; what is the responsible way of life to report security fault these days , in an operating system of rules or software ? I think that ’s one of the fundamental questions that ’s been shunt to the side and may be part of the issue .
These guy wire are security investigator , Maynor works for a firm called SecureWorks that ’s in the middle of going through a big merger and they do surety reporting work with corporation and produce report and such . Jon Ellch just got out of postgraduate school and he just got a job , but I do n’t know with whom . But these guy are serious security investigator and they found a bunch of flaws in the past times .
Typically , when you find a fault , you report it to the company through some means they ’ve made uncommitted to you and there ’s a process . Now , I do n’t conceive there ’s as found a summons unless you go through CERT , the Computer Emergency Response Team , that does a lot of coordination in the U.S. and worldwide on security measure fault as they do out to prevent the information from coming out so that someone could overwork it before it ’s patched .
So , that ’s the musical accompaniment . If you ’re a responsible security investigator , typically you connect with the company first , give them whatever detail you reckon are appropriate , and that can vary a lot from an all full write program that would fully exploit some job to like , “ Hey , you got a problem in this part of the code and I ’m not going to provide you information , but it ’s there and you guys image it out because you ’re smart . ” And that reach is actually take acceptable , too .
So at the Black Hat Conference , where all these security presentations are made — the title is a little tongue - in - cheek of course — these are being made in the open at this group discussion and sometimes there are “ zero - day exploits ” shown , which means it can exploited the trice they are testify . They are unpatched , gentle to exploit thing . These two researchers award what seemed to be an ambush on Apple , and I think that ’s been part of the controversy . The night before , they had stated that they had a generic exploit against Macs ; it was n’t absolved if it was Intel - found or PowerPC - base or both . They later meliorate that affirmation and sort of said they never said it , even though it was on the record and recorded . At the genuine group discussion , they showed a Mac with a third - company adaptor being attacked in a very specific way , and they present it on videotape . So , that ’s kind of the puzzling ballad of the dry land . What they really showed , they get up and read a videotape of a demonstration of a third - party adapter using a third - political party driver on a MacBook being hacked from a Dell computing equipment .
Jason : And you could essentially take it over via Wi - Fi not connect to a net and magically bad affair happened . They were able to control the MacBook .
Glenn : Well , of class , this is where it gets funny . That ’s what they were originally exact . The demo usher a MacBook link to a Wi - Fi web that was run by the Dell , so it could have been a malicious internet to begin with . It did n’t show them take over the political machine , it showed them run a few instruction and making a file appear and go away on the desktop of the MacBook . There ’s been some unbelievable JFK crap-shooter analytic thinking of that videotape by a turn of people on the net who say there ’s a lot of untrusting things , including the MAC ( Media Access Control ) savoir-faire , which is the unique adapter destination for any ethernet or Wi - Fi adapter . you’re able to see that in the demo and the arranger that they appear to be using do n’t equalise up with the correct ranges that Apple controls , so there ’s some dubiousness about what the telecasting was in reality show versus what they articulate it was depict .
Jason : So , what you watch is the Findergo back … and to the unexpended , back … and to the leftfield .
So , the simple version here , and I do n’t know , perhaps there is n’t , I ’m striving for a simple variant , but there may not be one . The idea was , people were worried , could this mean that Macs — sure models , all model , who screw — were fundamentally unsafe in a way due to a Wi - Fi bug of some sort . That ’s the core dread here , correct ?
Glenn : Yes , if you split it out … What they show and what they pronounce they were going to show , as researcher , what they said they were going to show was “ We visualize a generic mode to assail wireless adapters and find out their vulnerabilities without feature to do all of this sort of twiddly - bits that you usually do to incur these variety of weakness , ” which is a really knock-down thing . So their conceptual fabric was “ We know how to find weaknesses good than anybody else now , ” and that ’s dandy , and really that has n’t been disproven . This is a technique call fuzzing that I cerebrate survive before then but they ’ve refined , and that ’s nifty .
What they said generically was — and they say they establish this on Wi - Fi adapters with driver in Windows — was that there are ways in which a computer with a Wi - Fi adapter get in touch to no connection could in reality be hijack . The technological explanation in legal brief is just that malformed frame would be accepted by the Wi - Fi adapter and this would cause basically driver problem .
What happens is when you ’re not connected to a connection , your Wi - Fi arranger is n’t just sit there if it ’s turned on . As long as the adaptor is turned on and you ’re not affiliate with a web , it ’s constantly listening and place out lilliputian bits of entropy that help it be intimate what ’s depart on in the web environment around it . That ’s why when you take out down the AirPort menu , it shows you a lean of all the mesh in the vicinity even when you ’re not relate to a connection .
So , what these guy cable were enounce was that using one of several ways to make a Wi - Fi adapter that ’s listening to the improper type of frame , they could really station the wrong information through , which would make the driver to get overloaded , execute code and perhaps get root permit . So , that as a general concept is also well understand and accepted . There was nothing unreasonable with them say that such a weakness could subsist in Mac OS X , Windows , Linux , anywhere — that is a well - believed affirmation because of how Wi - Fi work .
Jason : The yield was this something that was , first off , something that was actually true because they only seemed to perform it in a canned kind of demo environs .
Glenn : Right .
Jason : And it was unreadable whether it was a stock system . They were using this third - party Wi - Fi transcriber , which adds another level of bizarreness to it since there ’s Wi - Fi that comes with the MacBook and they chose not to use it . Then their account has deepen a little moment bet on who they blab out to . They spill the beans to a bozo from the Washington Post . They made some public pronouncements on posting lists . So , the big question has been , is this real ? Is this not real ? And if it is genuine , what is it endeavor to assure us ? It seems to me that , follow the soap opera house , they were never really that approaching with details . Although , did they say that was because they were strain to work on it behind the scene or just because they wanted to be mysterious ?
Glenn : Well , this is where it generate confusing because there are n’t many first - party statements from them about it . I think what materialise was after the kerfuffle at Black Hat where Apple got really peeve because they bump out about , I think the engineers at Apple , my understanding of the timeline only heard from these research worker , if you believe this part of the timeline , a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. or two before Black Hat . Apple suppose public friend that they only heard about the feat at Black Hat . Apple later made SecureWorks , which is David Maynor ’s employer , clarify that the presentment only showed a third - political party arranger being hack on .
It ’s funny ; you could say their history changed . I was saying that for a while and then I realized we have n’t get any direct statements from them because I retrieve David Maynor ’s employer want to avoid bad reputation and lawsuits and sort of has clamp down on what ’s being released . The two researchers were suppose to present , just a few days ago , at a conference in San Diego called TorCon , another security measures event , they were suppose to pose what they say was the real selective information and they were not allowed to present , or I should say David Maynor ’s company would n’t allow him to present any evidence .
So , here ’s the part of the timeline that did happen . They draw this trouble . They show this hack using a third - party receiving set adapter on a Mac . Then just a few weeks ago Apple put out three maculation that do in fact piece the general problem of these malformed frames that could cause “ privilege escalation , ” as it ’s called , but Apple denies , and has denied in very specific terms that the researchers or Secureworks provided them any specific selective information or really , in some cases , they ’ve said any data whatsoever that lead them to actually dig this up . Apple say “ We had a bunch of engineers , we set them loose and said come up any weaknesses and if you do we ’ll patch them , ” and that ’s what Apple said befall . So , we ’re kind of in a match over who draw credit at this compass point .
Jason : So , to back up a little bit — I do n’t bed if it ’s the 50,000 foot overview , at least it ’s the 1,000 foot overview . Where we end up is that Apple released a package update for Wi - Fi that patches some security mess that they feel that they have found , but it ’s either unclear , reckon on who you involve , or vindicated that it is n’t the same job as what Maynor and Ellch find . So , there ’s some argumentation about whether perhaps they caused Apple to investigate Wi - Fi security and exhaust a fix , but Apple seems to say that the fixes that they ’re making are not address whatever Maynor and Ellch take to have retrieve .
Glenn : I consider that ’s exactly correct , that Apple would not have investigated this without this urging , because Apple was unaware of any specific problems in the driver and they were always doing testing and they get reports and there ’s a lot of pursuit in stress - testing Wi - Fi . And Apple is using good gadget driver and they ’re adapt computer code from FreeBSD so there ’s a lot of knowledge . So , you could say that Apple has this smutty - box seat part that ’s their secret sauce that ’s kind of on top of this undetermined - source and loose software that they habituate . But on the Wi - Fi side there ’s in reality quite a bit that is shared both on the chip and driver side with other organisation . So , it ’s not like there are n’t plan of attack . In fact , there was a major FreeBSD attack demonstrated last yr that was patched and Apple ostensibly had already piece that . They even claim Apple order that even the codification they are using was a slight different than the single that were attacked anyway .
But I think the profound point that ’s interesting , I think this is why we are all fascinated by this , by the way , is that this was a really serious attack . This is one of the most terrible flak that have not yet been understand against Mac OS X that I can think of in its entire story . And of course , it ’s a debile entry point ; it ’s a driver from another party that ’s integrated with computer hardware that provides a way to the external world .
Jason : And guess , I have in mind if you think about it , imagine Wi - Fi is turned on essentially on every Mac that exist , and you think that when you ’re not connected to a web you ’re really in a black box , that you are secure . In fact , this is the stop , potentially , of vulnerability . It ’s pretty scary .
Glenn : Right . Apple ’s point was that there was no exploit codification out there . They were deny that Maynor and Ellch had any codification that record this or whatever . So , let ’s just say that ’s Apple ’s command and it could be disproven if Maynor and Ellch are ever allow to release stuff that showed that they had the information . So , permit ’s leave that aside .
So , Apple order that there ’s no exploit code . They ’ve found this preemptively and they ’ve tone their organization without anything being out there in the natural state , or prove by investigator , as Apple allege , to do it . But , just ideate if Maynor and Ellch had n’t lift this especial issue , if Apple had n’t done it and you had some really villainous the great unwashed and they released code , permit ’s call it “ zero to tap ” — they just pushed code out there with no advance notice and abruptly somebody , anywhere in the world , who could download a spell of software could essentially derive root access to any Mac nearby them that was start the current adaptation of 10.3.9 or 10.4.7 .
So , I do n’t want to overstate it because we do n’t know how unmanageable it would have been to work those failing that Apple just patched . It could have exact a year ’s Charles Frederick Worth of 50 people compose the computer code to make it come about . Who knows ? But the fact is , this is the most severe vulnerability that I can think of that would allow access without being attached to a Macintosh , like sit at his keyboard , that ’s ever existed for Mac OS X.
Jason : So , yes , pretty scarey , as a potency , anyway , to be somewhat scary .
Glenn : Right and it ’s great , so nothing come about . This is where you then have to back up and say some mass quetch about Apple ’s response to security vulnerabilities and I consider there is some justification to that at times . It depends on the peculiar vulnerability . Here ’s a case where you have to say that you may contend all you want to how Apple responded to these guys , but within six weeks of either being lay out with evidence , if you conceive the researchers , some of their statement , or with six workweek of being presented with nothing , Apple released meaning patch that overcome what seems to be an undeveloped exposure . So , that really seems like a moderately honorable answer , even if there is this yield now about course credit for who reported it .
Jason : Right . So , once they knew about it , they seemed to have nonplus on the ball about it pretty speedily . So , the short version now , for a regular mortal listening in , who ’s not a security expert , not a Wi - Fi expert is : You never know if there ’s some other vulnerability out there , but at the very least , if you have n’t downloaded Apple ’s Airport Security Update you ought to go out and do that .
Glenn : Yes , and what ’s singular is that there ’s three different ones . That was confusing too . There ’s one for Power PCs running 10.3.9 , so if you have to be run that version , or 10.4.7 for Tiger . There ’s one for Intel - based Macintoshes run 10.4.7 and there ’s one for , I consider it ’s Intel - based Macs that have third party wireless transcriber connected , because Apple pronounce that there was actually a fault in their interface that allowed other companies to grow driver for that particular variation of the operating system .
As you know , you go to Software Update , you download it , install it , and it reboots and that ’s it . This is another interesting part that I have to say about Apple ’s approach to security updates is even if somebody said “ Oh my goodness , here ’s a great mode for me to tap Macs , ” the windowpane for them to exploit it becomes really belittled . Apple pushed out the updates . A mountain of mass automatically update . Anybody who ’s regularly tie in with broadband is probably going to have already have piece this or will very shortly . So , you get this very , very small window of when someone could potentially go attempt to reverse engineer and cypher out what the exploit was and then that window close really fast . So , there ’s not enough multitude to actually attack that it work sense .
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Glenn : Not its real name .
Jason : As I like to point out , that ’s not its real name . Everybody at iTV in Great Britain is on border right now . “ What ? Call it BBC next time ! ”
Glenn : You fucking … ! distressing .
Jason : So , Steve Jobs made a degree of saying 802.11 wireless networking would be in this intersection , which is what we know as Wi - Fi or Airport . But he did n’t cite any of those little letters that go on the end that tell apart you whether it ’s A or B complex or G or whatever . That ’s led to a small scrap of a furor , there ’s some speculation about what might be in there .
I thought we really have come to a amusing full point , because I remember when Wi - Fi first come out , everybody was blab out about how it really was n’t that tight compared to ethernet . It was slower than ethernet . All of a sudden , all the know - it - alls made a really honorable point which was “ Look , your connexion to the net at home is always going to be the gating broker . ”
Jason : It ’s extremely improbable that some even person at home is go to have an Internet joining that ’s go to be faster than their Wi - Fi connection . That ’s still dependable today , I think . But what ’s obtain interesting is we ’re not talk about pulling data over the net , we ’re talk about having motion picture or euphony on a computer in your house and then wanting to play it on a TV in another way , all of a sudden , hoi polloi start to wonder if Wi - Fi has really got it . Now , does Airport Extreme , 802.11 g , is that fast enough to teem video from , let ’s say , I ’ve become an iTV , a theoretical iTV in my den , and I ’ve gravel a Mac in my post . Is 802.11 g tight enough for that ?
Glenn : Well , I have to give you one of these non - answer answers , which is yes and no . There ’s tight enough and there ’s good enough , with networking . So tight enough is , is the bleak bandwidth enough ? The answer is yes , absolutely . Apple ’s sell the most scanty - osseous tissue rendering of 802.11 g , they ’ve beat no proprietary extensions like a lot of other companies have layered on top to improve speed and other factors . So Apple ’s interpretation is 54 megabits per second of raw data , and in a real web you unremarkably see , over a short mountain range , you usually see about 20 , 30 megabits per minute , somewhere in that range . That ’s plenty for H.264 compressed picture , for MPEG-2 , for all these different things . You could stream full - motion , full - screenland , HD - lineament , at least one current with that variety of connection . So that ’s the fast enough part .
The good enough part is that video is highly susceptible to any variety of degradation , like voice but even more so . You ’re blab out on a vocalization handset that ’s connected to a Wi - Fi connection , which is a big new deal these days too . If there ’s any holdup in any of the packets , or there ’s a web dropout for two seconds , your vocalism conversation sounds terrible and your video , you get this giving fatal silver screen . Even with buffering , you might have that . So there are company that have created proprietary engineering that overlays the Airport Extreme flavor of Wi - Fi and smooths it out . It ’s cry Quality of Service , or QoS , which is a room to ensure that certain data point mail boat are more important than every other .
So , the Animal Farm thing , it ’s “ all animal are create adequate and some more adequate than others . ” Well , all data is adequate except video and voice data is more equal than others . So you ’re downloading a giant file off the cyberspace , well that ’s less important than keeping that streaming video thing going along . So far , Apple does n’t have that engineering embedded in Airport Extreme , and that ’s going to be one of the issues with whether video would work over it , even though it has enough speed . Now I ’ve given you the yes and the no on that , I desire .
Jason : Well , and then I require to micro-cook a burrito , and the whole affair give-up the ghost to hell , right ?
Glenn : precisely .
Jason : That ’s another issue with this , is that you ’re rely for a consumer lotion . This befall to me ; we have a wireless audio streamer in our sustenance way . We were heed to some streaming Internet radio and my wife turned on the microwave and said “ Okay , the music just stopped . Something ill-timed with the reckoner ? ” I sat there and I think for a minute and I realized , the microwave is fail , and that ’s probably — sometimes that ’s enough .
Glenn : A little scary , is n’t it ? Well , you be intimate , this is the thing . Water is a dipole molecule that oscillate 2.4 billion times a second , when you call on on a microwave oven oven . The microwave oven is switching at the same relative frequency that Wi - Fi function at , which always baffles multitude because they ’re such different kinds of technology . Because a microwave oven oven , it ’s in reality causing friction , it ’s make water molecules rotate their magnetic poles really quickly and that friction cause the food to heat up .
But of course , that ’s sort of like rubble disturbance to a Wi - Fi pass receiver . In fact , the 2.4 Gc band , in which Wi - Fi and microwave oven cultivate , it ’s call the “ junk banding ” , that ’s its intimate name . And Wi - Fi , one of the slap-up things about it , it ’s really live to interference of all kinds , but it also mean there ’s ton of hitch in that band . If you live in a semi - industrial part of a city , there could be the great unwashed run these industrial sealers , these huge microwave oven sealers that seal equipment , or make plastic or whatever . You will not be able to run a Wi - Fi electronic web anywhere near there .
Jason : So 802.11n is what I keep hearing about now , which is the next generation of Wi - Fi .
Glenn : Conveniently starting with N.
Jason : So what does that get us ? Yes , I do n’t really realize the lettering and I do n’t call up I want to know . It ’s frightening to me .
Glenn : You do n’t need to acknowledge .
Jason : As long as they ’re using literal letters that I see in school , I ’m o.k. .
Glenn : That ’s proper .
Jason : If we get to like 802.11π I ’m go to go screaming . So what is 802.11n , when ’s it coming and what does it get us ?
Glenn : Well , N is a next generation Wi - Fi banner . N is a job chemical group within a radical at the IEEE standard dead body that realise these . It ’s a consensus - drive engineering group , and it ’s just as exciting as it sound . There ’s lots of the great unwashed from different companies and academe , and they get together and they hash out what these touchstone should face like , so that everyone can agree on them and then go back and build stuff base on them .
And so task group N , they were tasked about two years ago with Wi - Fi really is n’t truehearted enough to be competitive with a wire - line web . We require ethernet - same speeds out of Wi - Fi , especially as ethernet gets quicker and faster . With , you cognize , Gb ethernet really distinctive these day , and Gbit ethernet switch really cheap , Wi - Fi should be somewhere relative to that . And so they said , “ Okay , we have the engineering , we know the approach . ” And it ’s taken a long time to get here , but their goal is a raw rate . This is with web overhead , so this is the declared selling rate of at least 150 megabits per bit , versus 54 for 802.11 g.
Now , here ’s the coolheaded part . The real throughput should be over 100 megabit per instant , or four to five times quicker than what Airport Extreme can surrender on a good day today , and even beyond that . That ’s like the minimum , humbled - end rendering of 802.11n , which will come out … We should peach about when it ’s coming out , that ’s sort of a foresighted story , but we ’ll do the abbreviated version . Some version of 802.11n that will probably come out not until 2008 will have all these optional extras on it . They will run as fast as 600 megabits per second raw speed , with 200 to 300 Mb per irregular of real throughput . That starts to get you up there , where you ’re actually reasonably close to gigabit ethernet . In an place , like a graphic design office or an office that ’s doing tumid amounts of data file transfer and web cognitive operation , then radio becomes a real alternative to a wired meshing , with a wad more flexibility .
Jason : Unless you ’ve produce somebody run an industrial microwave oven sealant next threshold .
John Glenn : Darn those industrial sealer ! So now the timeline , so this is the ugly part , right ? you could actually go to the computer memory justly now and you could buy equipment that ’s label “ draft N ” on it , meaning it ’s free-base on a draft , and not a secrete version of this 802.11n standard . The primal trouble is , nobody agrees on the draught . It ’s a tipple ; it ’s not final . There ’s tons of variance , and there ’s fundamental divergence . So , betimes this year , draft 1.0 was agreed on by this group as the basis to do extra piece of work , to attain a final version .
A lot of producer , chipmakers , enounce “ Close enough . We ’re going to bear on equipment out because consumers are demanding this and we want to get it out in the grocery . ” So draft N gear is still pretty buggy . All the magazine that have reexamine it , our sis publicationPC Worldhas done some extensive reviews of other draft N gear , and not only does it not have Mac number one wood , just start there , but it also does n’t really interoperate well . You ca n’t get two devices , even with the same chips from two different companies and get them to work together as well as you ’d like .
Jason : So basically it wo n’t even run on a Mac . But you would need to buy two boxes from Linksys and associate them together , so as to get it to work .
Glenn : Yes , exactly . essentially from the Mac viewpoint , this is a nonstarter right now and even if you ’re a Windows or Linux user , if there are Linux number one wood , you ’re tied into what is now a very expensive technology .
Some of the benefits of N , N has fastness but it also has aloofness . It practice multiple antenna , an array of what ’s foretell multiple - in , multiple - out or MIMO antennas , to reach much bully range . you’re able to buy , on the market place today , 802.11 g gateways with MIMO aerial arrays attached that will achieve range that ’s far better than these swig N twist . So for under a hundred dollars you may buy a machine , a gateway , that shape better than the 250 dollar early non - compatible , non - received , draft due north gateway . So this is very frustrative .
Jason : Does n’t that grasp mean that we ’re going to have more interference problem when everybody ’s got 802.11n ?
Glenn : That is such a marvelous interrogative sentence because that ’s the logical ratiocination and here ’s where that call on out not to be so . What MIMO does , because it has multiple antennas , it can reconcile reflection . This is a big issue with all wireless data , it bound around objects . So some of it passes through object , some reflects . When you have one aerial or even two , it ’s really gruelling to figure out what direction a sign occur from and to differentiate between many signals . With multiple antenna and this technology approach the gadget can more easily differentiate between many signals . It ’s got more directionality , so it know that this signal bounced off this way , this other signal bounced off this way ; that ’s the same signal , so I can now rebuild the data that derive from that . That gets you more favouritism among unlike mesh in the same space . But it also gets you more range because distant and fainter signals can also now be picked up and sorted out better .
Jason : Sounds good . But is this going to be a product that we see , a last product next class sometime ?
Glenn : Oh , do n’t I care . The original projections last class were late 2006 for a final standard . At this point in time we ’re calculate at 2008 with the final standard being signal off by the whole IEEE standard soundbox . The good news though , and this is where it ties in with Apple ’s code - name iTV project : It looks like by March of 2007 , the chore group responsible for this should have a draught 2.0 , a variant that is basically pretty close to what everybody wants . And the Wi - Fi Alliance , which is in reality a trade mathematical group , that tests and certifies equipment as complying with these IEEE standards . These different company , include Apple and Intel and Microsoft , they are all voluntary fellow member of the Wi - Fi Alliance ; they bow their equipment to testing to get the Wi - Fi seal on it . So the Wi - Fi Alliance is go to certify and test equipment based on this interim swig in March . And they ’ll belike do that by the end of spring of 2007 . Then they ’ll do another translation , a year later when the final version is approved , they ’ll do another certification for concluding N products as well . There ’s require to be only some slight difference at that fourth dimension , belike the faster speeds being the self-aggrandizing one .
Now you tell me this , when is iTV hypothesize to send ? I hear a lot of dissimilar appointment for it .
Jason : All Apple has say is the first quarter , which stand for between January and March of 2007 , so it could be as late as the last day in March or it could be at Macworld Expo , and I reckon nobody really knows . If you had to make me venture , I ’d would say that they will announce it , its real name , its feature set , when it ’s hold out to be send , at Macworld Expo . But it wo n’t really transport then . That would be my best guess , but it ’s just a guess .
Glenn : That tie-up in with what the 802.11n schedule is too . Apple ’s two major chip suppliers for Wi - Fi , Atheros and Broadcom , which make all of the chips that go into all current Macs at this distributor point . Atheros , they pluck up when the Intel Macs came up they started to employ Atheros chips as well as Broadcom , which they had been using since 2003 . So , these two chip God Almighty have draught N products out in the market now . And they ’re actively some of the biggest players in the criterion summons .
If I had to make my best civilise surmisal , I ’d say that iTV wo n’t sport 802.11n unless it ’s at the very end of Apple ’s projected time human body , because it ’s possible that they ’ll be too many unknowns about what this substantial interim version , this manifest version of N is going to look like in the spring of 2007 . So if they put the chip in in January , it might not actually be upgradeable in the way they want in March or June or September .
So if Apple ship the iTV at the end of March , I would gestate that they would credibly use an other generation but somewhat compliant 802.11n chip . If they ship at Macworld , I think it ’s going to be 802.11 g. It will be Airport Extreme Squared or something . Because there is a mode that they could go back and upgrade all the existing Airport Extreme card through firmware , a download , and all the base station to add better supporting for streaming video and audio . It would n’t be perfect , but it would in reality probably be enough for their purposes .
Jason : That lead us to my next interrogative sentence . So it ’s not a no - go to do iTV with 802.11 g. 802.11 g can handle what you throw at it .
Glenn : I would say with upgrades of Apple ’s microcode for Airport Extreme , yes .
Jason : To prioritize that video and audio content .
Glenn : precisely . Because without that it ’s just going to be too fickle and people will be too unhappy . With that I suppose you ’d say one iTV on a meshing , not too far from everything else , from the base station and from the computers that are streaming , if there ’s material stream off computers or net connection , then you ’re not going to be disgruntled . There ’s company like Ruckus , Rotani , and there ’s several other firm , include the major Wi - Fi gateway Creator like Linksys and Netgear , they all have some amusement systems , they all have a little bit of proprietary cloak-and-dagger sauce that makes their medium stuff study . And it all works over 802.11 g. So Apple ’s in a position to upgrade G , and there ’s in reality dependable reasons why they should kick upstairs gram because it would help with voice call over Wi - Fi networking and there ’s some other things that are happening as well .
There ’s one affair I did n’t mention , 802.11n , one of the reasons that people are excited about it is not just because it ’s quicker and will support cyclosis video and it will go further , but it will actually make a lot more coincidental voice call potential over a Wi - Fi meshing because it ’s going to give you that much more reliability and distance in which these tiny call can be made with slap-up assurance without dropping out packets . If Apple has any voice programme for their networks , any calling options , perhaps like an iPhone , perhaps that might also have Wi - Fi built in , which , who knows if that would be the case , or even an iPod , than they may ask this betterment to Airport Extreme just for that purpose .
Jason : When we seem down the future in 802.11n , we ’ve been focused on an iTV on a web . I guess it ’s not unreasonable to hint that in the time to come , people are die to need to put an iTV or some other box on every TV in their house . If they ’ve got two or three , at that period , you do n’t desire to have a TV scheme where if mom ’s watching something in the living room , nobody else can watch TV in the other room because the bandwidth ’s all taken up . That ’s not go to be acceptable .
Glenn : In an article in coming Macworld powder magazine , written by yours truly , I have some number about that too , which is consumer electronics are really a big expansion . The iTV is like a funny loanblend . It ’s an adaptor . It ’s sort of a personal computer - to - consumer - electronics adaptor , you could call it . Because it ’s move to be a computer , but it ’s not kick the bucket to do computer things , but it ’s become PC like elements . And it ’s not go to be a consumer electronics affair because it does n’t really display anything .
Well , there ’s going to be videodisc participant and high-definition television sets and every kind consumer electronic equipment you could think of , is run to have 802.11n plant as just an pick . It ’s going to cost five buck for the chip in a couple of long time . So AVI Research based out of New York , they estimate nearly 250 million devices will sell in 2011 , consumer electronics twist , with embedded Wi - Fi , and about 90 summation percentage of those will apply N. And that ’s part of the rotation is . There ’s going to be an equal number of 802.11n and Wi - Fi adapters betray that are part of laptops and microcomputer in 2011 , by their number . But when you begin enounce , “ Anything I go into Costco and purchase to plug into my system is go to have N in it , ” and it also might have some other wireless standards we ’re not function to talk about right now , but that ’s where the real gyration is going to bechance . Then you do n’t need an iTV at that detail .
Jason : So I can bribe a microwave oven oven at Costco and it ’ll have N in it , but will it interfere with itself ?
Glenn : Well maybe it would align . Like you could grease one’s palms a microwave oven with N and it would check that it did n’t walk over the ease of the connection . Now that would be coolheaded .
Jason : That would be something . Glen , thank you for mouth about all of this Wi - Fi stuff . It ’s for certain enough to make your head spin . I ’m surely frantic about the iTV and about start out some advance in Wi - Fi . Gone are the days when your wireless electronic connection is always going to be fast enough . Now we ’re in an exciting new world where it ’s going to keep arrive faster and quicker . It ’s pretty exciting .
Glenn : Yeah . I consider there ’s fastness , there ’s distance , there ’s quality … I imagine one of the fundamental thing that comes up for me all the sentence is people say , “ My house is too big or too wonky , and I get ca n’t one Wi - Fi gateway to plow the house . ” That ’s break down to be part of what ’s exciting about the newer technologies . You plug in one gateway it will cover your whole house . You punch in an iTV to stream your video , your consumer electronics devices will have Wi - Fi in it and you just wo n’t interest about it anymore . It ’s going to be like a dial tone .
Jason : Ca n’t hold off . Glenn thanks a lot for your time .
Glenn : My joy . give thanks you .
Jason : Thanks for amount back to the podcast .
Glenn : Always a pleasure .
