Powered-speaker manufacturer Audioengine has jumped into the speaker cable-free audio market with its AW1 wireless adapter. It looks like a focused solution that simply moves audio from one place to another, which we like because it won't lock you into speakers, amps or communication protocols. And better yet, it sounds simple to use -- plug in audio to the 3.5-mm jack on the transmitter, break out 3.5-mm audio on the receiver side, supply USB power to the units, pair the two halves and you're done! Transmission is done over 802.11 (but with a claimed data rate of 340Mbps), latency is less than 20-ms and the signal-to-noise ratio is a respectable 91dB. That's certainly good enough for wireless surround channels, so what are you waiting for?


[Via digitalhomethoughts]

Life's just too good to only unveil one new television in a sitting, right LG? Apparently the firm is in total agreement, as it has decided to also shed a little (and we stress little) light on its (similarly designed) forthcoming 52-incher. The 52LG71 LCD TV claims to be the "world's first 1080p LCD with an integrated 802.11 Wireless System," and while we've certainly seen a few sets doin' the WiFi thing before (yes, even an LCD TV), you won't find us kvetching about newfound competition. Interestingly, we're not told what flavor(s) of 802.11 this thing supports, but considering that it can supposedly handle HD streams without a single hiccup, our bets are on 802.11n. Nevertheless, we'll hopefully be finding out the specifics soon enough, but for now, let this serve as motivation to start packing away any extra pennies as you wait for this to grace store shelves.

Samsung has just released information about its 2007 lineup of HDTVs, including new LCDs, DLPs, plasmas and even CRTs. There's too much high contrast, HDMI 1.3-equipped, Deep Color enabled for one page, so continue on for pictures and detailed specs, or check out our live coverage of the press conference.

Why do we care about faster WiFi? Say it with me people: "streaming HDTV without wires." Ok,maybe we're a little obsessed with the whole HDTV over WiFi thing, but it really impresses the ladies. Now that the Enhanced Wireless Consortium voted 40-0 on a joint 802.11n proposal, it's more likely that the IEEE will move the standard forward. Full ratification may take all year, but you can bet we'll see more "pre-n" gear and less "pre-pre-n" equipment which kills our product suggestion of "Finding MIMO."

The new 802.11n standard is expected to increase wireless networking speeds up to five times over 802.11a/g, which are currently pegged at 54Mbps, but we all know that the real throughput is currently about half of that, right? Greater compression rates will also help as current MPEG-2 HD requires up to 19.39Mbps of pipe.