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XBox (Games) Entertainment Games Hardware

Xbox Wireless Adapter Info Leaked 38

Posted by simoniker from the look-ma-no-wires dept.
cdneng2 writes "Yahoo!/Reuters has an article on the a new official wireless LAN/broadband adapter for the Xbox, details of which were unintentionally leaked on the FCC's website ahead of Microsoft's product unveiling. There's even a picture of the adapter, which has '54 Mbps' printed on it, in a Digitimes.com article." According to this latter story, "The chipset in the MN-740 wireless adapter appears to be supplied by Atheros Communications, possibly its 2.4GHz AR5002AP-G chip, which supports 802.11b/g. The device also features user-configurable 128-bit WEP (wired equivalent privacy) security."
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Xbox Wireless Adapter Info Leaked More

Xbox Wireless Adapter Info Leaked

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  • Why Shouldn't They Make One? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday August 29, 2003 @07:06PM (#6829464) Homepage
    Why shouldn't MS make a wireless adaptor for the X-Box? Let's face it, X-Box Live is something that many games want to use, but it requires broadband. And while you can use a modem anywhere, most people don't keep their broadband adaptor in their living room, it's usually by a computer. So what does that leave the person doing? They either have to run Cat-5 cable, use something like HomePNA or HomePlug, or use wireless. Why shouldn't MS make a wireless adaper? I wouldn't be suprised if there was a new X-Box bundle by Christmas that inclues the wireless adaptor. I would be willing to bet that wireless internet access is more common in homes than having ethernet jacks in your living room (slashdot croud excluded ;).


    • We published several Xbox wireless adapter MN-740 images. [geartest.com] Besides the standard photo that you are seeing all over the Web, we also published several close-ups of the internals of Microsoft's 802.11 access point [geartest.com], something that's sure to pique the interest of geeks everywhere.

  • Infrastructure vs. Peer mode (Score:4, Interesting)

    by neglige ( 641101 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @07:14PM (#6829515)
    Wouldn't it be cool if all the up-and-coming (and currently available) wireless input devices using IEEE802.11something could work with any access point/wireless card in infrastructure mode? You could play all your games from your neighbours house while the xbox is safe in your livingroom....

    Errr.....

    It *would* be cool! IPv6 force feedback gamepads! Yay!
    • " You could play all your games from your neighbours house while the xbox is safe in your livingroom.... "

      Funny you should mention that. I'm going to buy a second Game Cube so I can play multiplayer games on seperate TVs over the lan. That'd be cool if Nintendo had wireless! (Makes me tempted to get an X-BOX)

      Okay, not the most interesting or insightful post, but the thing I've hated most about multiplayer console games is that you can't hide from the other player in splitscreen mode. This sucked a lo

  • The new freeway shootouts... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JasonMaggini ( 190142 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @07:24PM (#6829592)
    ...will be kids in the backs of minivans playing Halo against each other.

    "Mommmm! Speed up! We're getting out of range!"
  • Oh wait, this isn't news at all. It'd be news if they DIDN'T buy a design and slap the X-Box logo on it.

    Microsoft shuns 802.11, claims a wireless standard that open isn't secure enough for their new image!!!

    Then I could badmouth them for being stupid, and feel better at night.

    So now every little X-Bot parent has one less stocking stuffer to think about.
    • Well, this is the exact product I have been waiting for. I'll be buying one.

      I know that there are similar products out there, but to be honest with you, I don't really feel like researching them, to find out which ones would work with an Xbox. So, I'll take the easy route, and buy the one with the Xbox logo. And no, I'm not stupid, or poorly informed- I deal with computers about 10 hrs a day...that is why I don't want to spend time on this!

      Secondly- don't think that this will be purchased mostly by par
      • 1) This is a significantly different product then the wireless bridge devices on the market (which WILL work with the XBox), as it lets you play with another person without additional hardware if she's got the adapter too.

        2) I didn't say it was dumb for Microsoft to release it, but it would be dumb if they didn't release it, and I was complaining that they haven't given me anything to bitch about today.

        Ooooooh, now I'm aggravated.
    • It'd be news if they DIDN'T buy a design and slap the X-Box logo on it.

      Nowhere in the article does it say anything about "buying a design." MS has excellent hardware engineers.

      Furthermore, if you're referring to their using the Atheros chipset, I don't know of any companies that roll their own wireless chipset. So basically, I don't understand what you're referring to at all.

      • First of all, the chipset IS the design. Have you looked at a wireless card lately? The RF shield goes over the whole thing. The rest is just interface buffering (impedance/voltage matching, I/O arbitration), and maybe a ROM.

        D-Link buys designs. Linksys buys designs. Netgear buys designs. I wasn't trying to put Microsoft down, I was trying to express how OBVIOUS it was that Microsoft would have this too, seeing as there would be no excuse (x86 platform and all, no wifi stack/firmware changes or rewrites ne

        • Re:(sigh) (Score:2, Interesting)

          by kylef ( 196302 )

          First of all, the chipset IS the design.

          Well, that is a strange view of PCB design. After many years in the industry, I don't share that view. That would imply that everyone who uses chipsets is simply "buying a design."

          In the case of a USB wireless adapter, there are some significant translation layer issues with converting the 802.11x layer to USB that are not solved by the Atheros chipset in question. I'm not saying that this problem hasn't already been solved by several other add-on chipsets, but

          • ^_^

            (I was sure that the Atheros chipset in particular handled a great deal of the nasty details of handling the 802.11x stack through logical USB frame commands, so that the driver would be pretty straightforward. Or maybe it was the opposite; it exposed the radio directly THROUGH USB to the driver, so it had to do all the work... in any case I was sure the chipset greatly simplified things from a design standpoint since it bridged USB to the netradio almost directly. I could be thinking of something else,
  • The whole idea of Wireless networking relies on moving around place to place, not too viable with a static console. If the Gameboy Advance incorporated a low-power version of the 802.11, we could have game packs which could constantly scan around for a player with a certain skill level, then beep. There could be spontaneous lanparties everywhere much like the Flash Mobs.

  • Wireless Adapter for consoles... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Strag ( 682984 ) on Saturday August 30, 2003 @12:30AM (#6831139)
    Where have I seen something like this before...
    oh yeah... [linksys.com]
    and that too... [linksys.com]

  • Bah (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <mrpuffypants@gmailTIGER.com minus cat> on Saturday August 30, 2003 @01:17AM (#6831313)
    I ran Cat5 to my entertainment system for two reasons: Xbox and TiVo. Since they're both using ethernet I see nothing to get excited about over this release. Linksys already makes some great products for bridging ethernet to 802.11b/g that are tailored just for the ps2/gc/xbox and they're probably cheaper in the longrun, plus they can be used with anything, not just your Xbox (wanna extend your network to your neighbor's house? Use one of linksys's thingamabobs)

    Now what would get me excited would be a good RF controller for the xbox made by microsoft. I just used the wavebird for the first time about a week ago and it totally blew my mind. Who needs wires for controllers?
  • This is wonderfull news. Now with my DC-to-AC car power addapter, I can plug my Xbox into the extra DC outlet in my SUV and ride around and game on other people's internet connections. Even more interesting is the notion that I can probably now intercept other peoples game packets form my cozy parking spot in front of their house! Who know, I might even be able to get a free live subscription by hijacking another persons packets over the 802.11 medium. Games are awsome at generating lots of packets too, so
    • Yeah, a million packets to crack wep.
      With 5 years old shitty hardware and firmwares maybe. The last AP I tested gave me ONE weak packet after 6 million packets, so I wouldn't count on it.
      • Good for you, have a cookie from the jar. I did manage to crack WEP on several different AP's, but I probably do this stuff more than you? =)

        I Would estimate that of the hundreds of AP's I have surfed, only 30% bother to enable WEP or any sort of seciurty such as mac/ip filters. Of Those AP's that did enable WEP, only a few were a problem for me. For example, one AP had some sort of round-robin WEP key exchange that must have changed before I got enough packets, another was using IPSEC over WEP (I cracked
        • But doesn't bsd-airtools require as many weak packets as, say, Airsnort ?
          Did you use anything like Reinji to "help" the access point spit out weak packets?
          I'm not saying WEP is hard to crack, but I'd rather play at home with my Xbox than bothering with WEP cracking and packet reinjection hehe..
          • nope, BSD-Airtools uses some tricks to go faster, enough so that I wouldn't use anything else. BAT has its own magic to reject non-weak packets.

  • What is WEP for ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by foniksonik ( 573572 ) on Saturday August 30, 2003 @03:13AM (#6831622) Homepage Journal
    I just want to know what sort of communication is going on that requires WEP encryption? Seeing as how it is intrinsically flawed, WEP key rotation isn't mentioned and the fact that it will slow down the ever so important FPS?

    Any thoughts? Is Microsoft planning on mergin this with their Internet TV concept? Will you be emailing via hotmail through your XBox in the years to come?

  • I think this is great news, especially if they will sell the adapter cheap enough. This would be a nice way of getting a cheap 54 Mbs wireless adapters for our computers.

    The article mentions an Ethernet interface, otherwise, it must use a USB interface. (As most people probably know, the XBox controllers, memory cards, etc all use USB.)

    I bought the XBox remote control as it was the cheapest computer remote control available (in Europe, remote controls for computers are quite expensive).
    ---
    If you're not li
  • I've been using the DWL-810+ for some time now, streaming my DVD movies using Relax over to my Xbox in the living room.
    Although a bit pricey, the device enables me to connect any hardware with an ethernet interface to my wireless gateway.
    It is a great setup with the server stashed away in the closet serving up all movies and MP3s to the xbox, wireless.

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