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...Read more...
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...Read more...
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...Read more...
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...Read more...
Practically everyone who owns a smartphone should be on the lookout for a patch. Both Google and Apple this week released software updates for Android and iOS, respectively, to address a vulnerability discovered in Wi-Fi chipsets developed by Broadcom. If left unpatched, an attacker within range of the same Wi-Fi...Read more...
Living far away from a major city center can offer a huge number of perks (like peace and quiet), but quality Internet access is rarely one of those perks. While many of us might curse at our meager 50Mbps connections from time to time, there are many others who are still at the mercy of latency-ridden satellite or...Read more...
Just when you've gone and upgraded your home network to 802.11ac (Wireless-AC) territory, Qualcomm comes out today and starts talking about a fancy new standard, 802.11ax. More specifically, Qualcomm unveiled what it says is the first end-to-end 802.11ax portfolio with new system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for network...Read more...
Updated: 2/10/2017 - Since we initially launched this article, Netgear assisted with resolving a technical issue we were experiencing with 802.11ad connectivity and performance with the Nighthawk X10 router we had in for testing. As such, we have updated this review with both fresh 60GHz 802.11ad performance...Read more...
Linksys is jumping on the mesh network bandwagon with the introduction of Velop, a tri-band modular Wi-Fi system that can be installed in various mesh configurations. The benefit of going this route versus a traditional router is that mesh networks are designed to eliminate Wi-Fi dead zones, as well as offer fast...Read more...
The European Commission is doing its best Oprah Winfrey impression, though instead of giving away cars, it's focusing on Wi-Fi access to the public sector—you get free Wi-Fi, and you get free Wi-Fi, and you get free Wi-Fi! It's a €120 million (~$135 million in U.S. currency) effort to bring free Wi-Fi to all facets of...Read more...
A team of smartypants from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Labl (CSAIL) have developed a new Wi-Fi system purportedly capable of transmitting wireless data more than three times faster than the Wi-Fi we use today. And on top of being significantly faster, it doubles the range of modern day Wi-Fi...Read more...
Call it a first-world problem if you like, but the larger your home, the trickier it can be blanketing it in wireless connectivity. Dead zones have a nasty habit of popping up in remote corners separated by walls and doors, and that's one of the reasons why your choice in router matters. It's also the main selling...Read more...
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech from here on out) has filed a lawsuit against both Apple and Broadcom claiming the two companies are using wireless technologies that infringe on various patents in its portfolio. Perhaps coincidentally, two of Apple's wireless products have since been pulled from store...Read more...
Remember when Samsung had big ambitions of taking over the mobile handset market with Tizen, its home brewed operating system? Well, that didn't happen, but instead of scrapping Tizen, Samsung's breathed new life into its OS by pushing it into other mobile markets. One of those is the automobile industry, for which...Read more...
Time change at a rapid pace, and whereas it was once common to communicate with each other when out and about using a payphone, these days everyone owns a smartphone. Every wonder what happened to all those phone booths? In New York, they're being converted into free municipal Wi-Fi hotspots.
It's part of an effort called LinkNYC. It's Read more...
Spending time in a busy airport terminal is not something that many of use enjoy doing; it’s something that we have to do. With that in mind, most of us will hop on whatever free Wi-Fi option available, battling it out with other travelers with whatever table scraps of bandwidth are available. For everyone else...Read more...
Shortly after we published our AC3200 router roundup, Linksys contacted us and wanted to throw one of its routers into the ring. We agreed, and the company sent us its Linksys EA9200 Tri-band Smart Wi-Fi router, which like the others in the roundup is a tri-band router that uses the Broadcom XStream 5GHz platform, throwing out dual 5GHz networks...Read more...
We get it, you're the king of the block when it comes to Christmas lights and decorating for the holiday season. Everyone in the neighborhood knows it, everyone except Bob from across the street. He's new and he's been stocking up on strings of lights and glowing yard stands. Now you have to up your game and put Bob...Read more...
We’ve all heard about Wi-Fi — the ubiquitous wireless networking standard is commonplace in just about all of our gadgets (smartphones, tablets and notebooks) and even our cars, as well as some home automation and IoT products. It’s hard for most people not to go a day without using Wi-Fi at some point, and with...Read more...
In another generation or two, fliers who take to the skies will take for granted Wi-Fi access on airplanes. For JetBlue, that reality will come a lot sooner as it aims to be the only U.S. carrier to offer high-speed wireless Internet access on every aircraft by around this time next year, if everything goes to...Read more...
Wireless routers are going through somewhat of a renaissance right now, thanks to the arrival of the 802.11ac standard that is "three times as fast as wireless-N" and the proliferation of Internet-connected devices in our homes and pockets. Whereas before we merely had a handful of laptops and PCs connected to the...Read more...
It’s interesting to see how quickly a company changes its tune once its nefarious deeds, or rather “public trials,” are brought to light. Earlier today we brought you a story detailing AT&T’s rather sloppy and risky behavior regarding inserting ads into webpages for users that connected to its free Wi-Fi...Read more...