The brilliant minds CSIRO have spent the past few years developing a new wireless technology to deliver high speed wireless internet to rural Australia. Now dubbed Ngara – an Aboriginal word from the Darug people that means ‘listen, hear and think”, the technology promises 12Mbps symmetrical speeds for six simultaneous users and is set to be demonstrated next week in Sydney.
To celebrate Australia Day this week, we’re looking at some of the best inventions to ever come out of our sunburnt country. Today, we pay homage to Dr John O’Sullivan, who’s work at the CSIRO helped create the technology behind wireless LAN, giving people all over the world the joy of connected devices without a cord.
Despite only ranking in at number 145 on the Top 500 rank of supercomputers around the world, and coming in as the third Australian supercomputer on the list, the CSIRO’s GPU-based machine managed to rank in as the 11th greenest supercomputer on the list. This video gives a really good insight into exactly what the scientists are creating with their super science powers.
You know the problem with most gloves? They don’t protect you from the scary things in life, like hypodermic needles and microbiological pathogens. Fortunately, the Victorian government has just invested $1.5 million in developing magic super gloves that will protect wearers from any type of nasty you can throw at them.
According to Asher Moses at the Sydney Morning Herald, the CSIRO just received it’s first royalty paycheck for licences on its wireless data patents, which are the cornerstone for Wi-Fi. It was a cool $200 million. Looks like first round’s on them!
Screw Wimax and LTE – The CSIRO has a brand new wireless technology in the works, and is pimping it to the government as a possible solution to the problem of rolling out the NBN to remote areas.
As the happy owner of a cheapass Buffalo WHR-G125 router running DD-WRT, the ridiculous BS patent lawsuit that got Buffalo being banned from selling routers in the US was deeply aggravating. Great news for Buffalo and reasonable people everywhere, CSIRO’s patent claims have been ruled invalid, and Buffalo is getting a new trial, so we’ll be able to buy Buffalo’s awesome cheapo routers again. One day, anyway. [Buffalo via Slashdot - Thanks Chubbs!]
Carbon nanotubes have been popping on Giz for a while, touted as one of the next wonder-materials—but a new development in their manufacture means they may not remain “future technology” for long. In fact the work of a team at CSIRO and the University of Texas at Dallas means that commercial-scale production of sheets of carbon nanotube “textile” is possible at up to seven metres per minute.
Australia-based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has won a patent infringement suit against Buffalo in a US district court, enjoining sales on all 802.11a, g and n products made by Buffalo as of Oct. 1 (full list here). CSIRO is apparently suing the entire wireless LAN industry, so Buffalo has the quite the list of friends filing briefs on their behalf: Microsoft, 3COM Corporation, SMC Networks, Accton Technology Corporation, Intel, Atheros Communications, Belkin International, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel Networks, Nvidia Corporation, Oracle Corporation, SAP AG, Yahoo, Nokia, and the Consumer Electronics Association. If Buffalo doesn’t win its appeal, it clears the way for CSIRO to take on the rest of the industry, which could result in licensing fees being tacked on to all 802.11a, g and n products. Booooo fees. [Buffalo via Wi-Fi Networking News, Flickr]
According to The Register, the latest news on IEEE finalising the 802.11n spec is that there is now a big sticking point over patent concerns related to our very own CSIRO. They are known to possess a patent essential to the spec, so without a guarantee that they will not sue anyone over the use of the technology the IEEE will not finalise the standard.
And the gear out there that is ‘draft-n’? Well that is already possibly open to being hit by patent suits if CSIRO cashes in their chips on this one. It’s not that they are shaping to do so, it’s just that they’re staying too quiet for the IEEE’s liking.
We’ve asked the CSIRO for their side of the story, but it’s still early on the first day back at work so we have yet to hear any word. We’ll share what we can if we do. [The Register]
