Real, practical wireless power is still more fantasy than fact for most, but Ossia has a new strategic partner that could help accelerate its transition to wider availability and usefulness. Japan’s KDDI, the country’s second-largest wireless carrier, has participated in Ossia’s recent $10 million raise, which will help Ossia spur the development of its Cota wireless power technology.
A relatively simple circuit invented by researchers at the University of Texas could let smartphones and other wireless devices send and receive data twice as fast as they do now.
The circuit makes it possible for a radio to send and receive signals on the same channel simultaneously – something known as “full-duplex” communications. That should translate to a doubling of the rate at which information can be moved around wirelessly.
Medical implants like pacemakers, deep brain stimulators, and cochlear implants could someday be joined by still more bioelectronic gadgets—devices that regulate insulin levels, control appetite, lower blood sugar, or treat brain injuries (see “Nerve-Stimulating Implant Could Lower Blood Pressure”).
But before we’re all riddled with electronics, researchers have to figure out how to power it all. Pacemaker batteries are too clunky for tiny devices saddled up to nerves, and existing wireless methods, such as those used for cochlear implants, won’t work with devices buried deep in the body.
Mimosa Networks, the designer of super-fast Wi-Fi networking gear, has unveiled its first wave of wireless Internet backhaul radios.
The company, which recently raised $20 million in a round of funding from New Enterprise Associates, is announcing its B5 Backhaul radio with a wireless technology dubbed massive MIMO (multiple in, multiple out). It is also unveiling its Mimosa Cloud Services network planning and analytics software.
Mimosa says the tech will revolutionize the wireless service provider industry.
