Items tagged with wi fi
Stronger wireless security is headed to homes and businesses. That's because the Wi-Fi Alliance this week formally introduced Wi-Fi Certified WPA3, the next generation of Wi-Fi security with new capabilities to bolster personal and enterprise wireless networks. The new standard builds upon and ultimately replaces WPA2, which has seen widespread adoption over the past 10 years, enabling more robust authentication. No small upgrade, WPA3 delivers increased cryptography strength for highly sensitive data markets. There are two modes, WPA3-Personal and WPA3-Etnerprise, both of which use the latest...
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Apple is discontinuing its line of wireless routers, including its AirPort Extreme base station and AirPort Express, both of which support simultaneous dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi connectivity and can be configured and managed through an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. It's a somewhat surprising move when there is so much focus in the tech industry on the fast growing Internet of Things (IoT) market and connecting homes, though the writing has been on the wall for more than a year. In late 2016, Apple dismantled its AirPort division and reportedly reassigned employees who had been developing...
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Do roaming charges have you feeling down? Good news—Google has begun beta testing Wi-Fi calling on its Google Voice service for Android devices and on the web. As for iOS, Google says support is coming soon, but did not offer up a specific date. This is especially helpful for people who own more than one mobile device, such as a personal phone and a separate one for work. Through the beta program, users can make calls over Wi-Fi on any compatible device that has Google Voice installed, or on the web. Not only could this potentially reduce roaming charges (if that is something you contend...
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Over the past few weeks, complaints have been pouring into Google's support communities and reddit concerning Google Home and Chromecast devices flooding home Wi-Fi networks with packets of data, causing their internet speeds to slow to crawl. Thankfully, Google has responded late this week with a fix to address these slowdowns. "In certain situations, a bug in the Cast software on Android phones may incorrectly send a large amount of network traffic which can slow down or temporarily impact Wi-Fi networks," wrote Google. "The specific impact to the network will vary depending on the router." As...
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Technology is awesome when it works as intended, and maddeningly frustrating when it glitches. Unfortunately for some owners of Google's Chromecast dongles and Home smart speakers, they are experiencing the latter with unexpected Wi-Fi dropouts and router reboots. The issue affects several different router models and seems to be related to the way Google's devices cast content. The complaints have been piling up at Reddit. Those suffering from wonky wireless issues report the problem with Chromecast and Google Home devices on ASUS, Linksys, Netgear, TP-Link, and Synology routers. TP-Link acknowledge...
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The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced that it has added new enhancements and features to WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) that will make the feature more secure. The new features include configuration, authentication, and encryption enhancements across the portfolio to ensure that Wi-Fi Certified devices are using state of the art security protections. The Wi-Fi Alliance wrote, “WPA2 provides reliable security used in billions of Wi-Fi devices every day, and will continue to be deployed in Wi-Fi CERTIFIED devices for the foreseeable future. Wi-Fi Alliance will continue enhancing WPA2 to ensure it...
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You Dawg, D-Link heard you like antennas, so it put some antennas on your antennas. The company has rolled out a pair of new Ultra Wi-Fi routers that are 802.11ax compatible. The products include the AX6000 Ultra Wi-Fi Router (DIR-X6060) and the AX11000 Ultra Wi-Fi Router (DIR-X9000), and D-Link says that both are designed to push the limits of performance and range. The AX6000 supports speeds up to 6,000 Mbps while the AX11000 supports up to 11,000 Mbps. "With ever-increasing internet speeds, consumers are connecting more devices than ever before," said Nima Jamshidi, Senior Product Line Manager,...
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Rivet Networks today announced a new high-performance wireless module, the Killer 1550, that also happens to be the first one introduced as part of a collaboration with Intel. That is not a bad partner to have, and in this case, the result is a wireless module that meets and even surpasses gigabit wireless speeds. More specifically, the Killer 1550 delivers a max throughput of 1.73 gigabits per second. Let that number sink in a moment. Granted, real-world speeds are never going to hit theoretical maximums when it comes to networking productions—there is always overhead to consider. But even...
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Within the year, Intel will beef up its portfolio of networking products with 802.11ax Wi-Fi chipsets for mainstream 2x2 and 4x4 home routers and gateways, the company recently announced. Routers and gateways based on Intel's new chipsets will be compatible with today's cable, DSL, and fiber optic networks, delivering faster wireless performance to home consumers and their devices. The Wi-Fi Alliance is still hammering out an official specification for 802.11ax. Once completed and deployed by hardware makers in earnest, 802.11ax will deliver significant performance over 802.11ac Wi-Fi, with up...
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A security expert at Belgian university KU Leuven has discovered a major vulnerability in the Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) protocol that could a expose a user's wireless Internet traffic, including usernames and passwords that are entered into secure websites. The vulnerability affects most devices and several operating systems, including Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and OpenBSD. "Attackers can use this novel attack technique to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted," Marthy Vanhoef, a security expert at Belgian university KU Leuven, wrote in a detailed report...
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For all the attention that has been poured onto Android 8.0 Oreo, one thing that has kind of flown under the radar is support for Wi-Fi Passpoint. This is a technology that was introduced by the Wi-Fi Alliance back in 2012 to make bouncing from one hotspot to another a smooth and seamless transition, and it is included in Google's Android 8.0 update, which Google describes as the biggest change to the foundations of Android to date. This is a big convenience that is coming to Android. Without it, roaming a city landscape and going from one hotspot to another is an annoying affair that requires...
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Netgear has a solution to eliminate those pesky Wi-Fi dead zones in your home and to extend wireless coverage to every nook and cranny. It is called the Nighthawk X6S (model EX8000) and it is an AC3200 tri-band Wi-Fi range extender, which itself does not sound all that sexy, but there is more here than meets the eye. One thing that makes this range extender stand out from the competition is Netgear's patented FastLane3 technology. FastLane3 is a fancy marketing term Netgear came up with to describe three critical components of the Nighthawk X6S, those being tri-band Wi-Fi, a dedicated Wi-Fi link...
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WikiLeaks has published secret documents belonging to the United States government that reveal the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been building and maintaining cyber tools designed to compromise wireless routers. These tools are the work of the CIA's hacking unit called Engineering Development Group. Among them is a specialized firmware referred to as Cherry Blossom. "The wireless device itself is compromized by implanting a customized Cherry Blossom firmware on it; some devices allow upgrading their firmware over a wireless link, so no physical access to the device is necessary for a successful...
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We're living in a mobile world folks, and you might as well embrace it. The alternative is to reminisce about the good ol' days while yelling at the kids on your lawn, only they won't hear you because they're too busy texting and sending Snapchats on their mobile phones. But I digress (slightly). The point here is that mobile is the present and the future. Even home networking is not immune—Comcast has rolled out a new cloud-based service that allows users to customize their home Wi-Fi through a mobile app. Comcast is not breaking new ground in this regard. Several router makers already offer this...
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