Michael Wolf, senior industry analyst for Cahners-InStat, will deliver an update on home networking technology and the 1394 multimedia standard at the 1394 Trade Association’s annual Developers’ Conference July 31 to Aug. 2. The conference will be held at the Microsoft Conference Center on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington.
1394 is the technical name for FireWire, a peripheral interface, developed by Apple, used on Macs and many Wintel systems to connect digital cameras, scanners, hard drives, CD-R’s and other high-speed peripherals. FireWire can move large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices at transfer rates of 100, 200 and 400 Mbps with even better data transfer rates on the way.
Wolf, who serves as group manager for Networking Information Research Services and the Residential Connectivity Service with Cahners In-Stat, will speak at 10 a.m. on July 31 as part of the kick-off of the fifth annual 1394 Developers’ Conference.
The 1394b specification defines bandwidths of 800 Megabits/second with scalability to 3.2 Gigabits/second, along with longer cable lengths and backward compatibility with all versions of the 1394 standard. The conference also includes design workshops to help engineers start new designs, driver-writing sessions hosted by Apple and Microsoft, and a marketing and management track covering the latest market developments.
Sponsors for the annual event include Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Philips Semiconductors, VividLogic, Wipro and Zayante. It will feature complete design and development tutorials on 1394b, the newly introduced version of the IEEE 1394 standard. Details can be found at the 1394 Trade Association Web site.