Networking - Page 3

Said to be targeting motherboards to be placed in online gaming PC builds, Realtek is looking to win back some lost market share in the DIY motherboard scene - taken by Intel and Killer over the past few years. The new Realtek Dragon is said to offer lower latencies for those wanting to play games online.

This chip features the new Realtek RTL8118AS, showcasing gigabit Ethernet speeds. Said to offer better performance for small packet traffic and lower power consumption than competitors, Realtek has released a fancy new logo for this model as seen above - asking motherboard manufacturers to print it onto the PCB.

Set for debut in LGA1151 motherboards through the help of ECS, there has been no other mentioned manufacturers taking this new Realtek design on board just yet.

Computex 2015 - Adding to the plethora of models on offer in Taipei, ASUS has showcased two new Wi-Fi home products, the RT-AC3200 tri-band gigabit router and the RP-AC68U 3-in-1 access point, rage extender and media bridge.

This new router offers consumers tri-band Smart Connect technology which sets out to assign each connected device the ideal Wi-Fi band pending its needs, AiProtection to help keep your home safe from breaches of personal data and a traffic analyzer so you can find out exactly which housemate or child has been downloading torrents throughout the night.

As for specifications, this router operates on a frequency of concurrent 2.4GHz (600 Mbps), 5GHz-1 (1300 Mbps) and 5GHz-2 (1300 Mbps) and offers a single gigabit WAN port, four gigabit LAN ports, one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 connection.

Boasting a sales portfolio of over 100 million routers globally and being the first to do so, Linksys has just released its new RE5700 WLAN range extender with inbuilt power plug.

If you're worried about taking up precious power board space and are living in a large home, this may be just the product for you. Featuring a Wi-Fi signal boost of up to 10,000 square feet and a nice all-white design, this product will set you back $119.99 from online retailers.

The RE6700 uses a Gigabit port for Ethernet input or output, a 3.5mm jack for audio streaming and boasts the capability to work with any router on odder.

NZXT have just announced their DOKO - a PC streaming device that connects to your network, allowing you to use the PC in your living room or other places around your home. The DOKO gives you the ability to complete any function that your PC would usually do, no matter where you are - thanks to its lack of limitations.

According to their recently issued press release, "the current problem with modern PC streaming technologies and set-top boxes is that they all come with their own pre-defined limitations," further explaining that "TV boxes are restricted to their own set of media channels, file formats and limited applications. PC game streaming and screen mirroring devices are all restricted by their own platforms, proprietary technologies or latency issues."

Using a gigabit Ethernet connection, the DOKO offers low latency, 50-80ms, high definition, 1080p @ 30fps, services. Complete with four USB ports containing USBoverIP technology, users gain the ability to plug a device into the DOKO and it will mirror these actions just as if you plugged it in to your home PC.

CES 2015 - Featuring a new range of ULTRA Performance 11AC routers, expanded DIY home automation offerings, all-new DIY Home Security Kits, the industry's first Gigabit PowerLine Kits with MIMO and all-new IP surveillance solutions, D-Link have unleashed a range of new products to the market as an addition to the ever-flowing CES 2015 coverage.

First off the rank is their ULTRA performance Wi-Fi Routers, the AC5300, AC3200 and AC3100. These devices claim a wireless speed of up to 5.3 Gbps, furthered coverage, a revamped user interface and dynamic Smart Connect to automatically balance clients.

Their new home automation offerings are coming in the form of their Connected Home Hub and range of Sensors and Sirens - designed to help keep DIY homeowners more in tune with what's happening. D-Link's connected Home Hub plugs into existing home routers, acting as a centralized control for D-Link Connected Home Devices - this is done by integrating Wi-Fi and Z-Wave wireless technologies using the 'mydlink' Home app for iOS and Android platforms. D-Link has expanded their security range by including the Z-Wave Open & Close Sensor, the Z-Wave Motion Sensor (DCH-Z120), their Wi-Fi Water Sensor and the Wi-Fi Siren.

TechNavio has published a report on the Global WLAN Security Market, claiming that it's expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27.99 percent during the 2015-2019 period.

This tech-focused research firm claims that WLAN security systems are in high demand for enhanced network performance, stating that growth is currently being experienced as more companies are utilizing Bring Your Own Device (BYOC) policies which has prompted users to "go mobile" - with even schools taking part in similar schemes.

The Vice President of TechNavio, Faisal Ghaus, mentioned that "WLAN Security is finding growing relevance as employees are using their own devices while working on confidential company information and applications outside of the office". Further expanding on his companies report which claims that the amount of data being processed by these BYOD systems and the sensitive nature of whats involved will see a major boost come to the wireless security sector in coming years.

Qualcomm is releasing new chipsets for access points that leverage MU-MIMO technology. Current-gen Wi-Fi systems can become easily overwhelmed when multiple users access the system simultaneously. The core reason is because Wi-Fi wasn't designed to serve multiple users at the same time. Wi-Fi sends a single stream of data to a user, then that transmission is terminated and another stream initiates for another user, but there is never more than one active data stream. These snippets in time become increasingly smaller and more frequent as more users log in, effectively throttling the network bandwidth and speed for all users.

MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output) is a revolutionary new antenna technology that enables communication with multiple devices simultaneously over multiple streams of data. This enables the host router to act more as a switched ethernet fabric and will exponentially increase the ability for wireless routers to handle groups of users. Qualcomm's new chipsets will enable this capability with 802.11ac networks. Qualcomms offerings are going out to the enterprise first, and several vendors will begin offering products supporting MU-MIMO in the middle of 2015.

The only drawback is that most current receivers do not support the technology. Qualcomm's existing Snapdragon 801 and 805 processors support the technology, but will need a software update to operate correctly. MU-MIMO will enter the consumer space as well in 2015, and will allow users to experience much smoother performance on large-scale networks.

Samsung is claiming to have developed an incredible new 60GHz Wi-Fi technology, something that will bridge the gap between theoretical, and actual, real-life Wi-Fi speeds.

The South Korean giant has said that this new 60GHz Wi-Fi technology is capable of 4.6Gbps, or an insane 575MB/sec. Considering the fastest Wi-Fi technology available right now is just 866Mbps, which transfers at around 108MB/sec, this is a massive increase. The 60GHz technology would be capable of transferring 1GB in less than two seconds. Samsung's announcement of this technology teases "Unlike the existing 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi technologies, Samsung's 802.11ad standard 60 GHz Wi-Fi technology maintains maximum speed by eliminating co-channel interference, regardless of the number of devices using the same network".

The company has said that part of the success it found in its 60GHz Wi-Fi technology is that it uses millimeter waves, which travel by line of sight and are stopped by walls and other obstacles. Samsung uses wide-coverage, beam-forming antennae as well as micro beam-forming control technology to achieve the 575MB/sec, or 4.6Gbps speeds. Samsung has said that commercialization of the 60GHz Wi-Fi band spectrum would happen as soon as early 2015.

Earlier, we reported that Mediabridge's lawyer threatened an Amazon buyer when he posted a review, complaining about Medialink's Wireless-N router. Amazon decided to crack a whip over Mediabridge, and barred from selling its products through the online retail giant's e-commerce website.

It started when the review posted in reddit that he was served with a letter from Mediabridge's lawyers. They demanded that he should take down the review, refrain from talking about the company and its products directly and indirectly and also agree never to purchase any of its products. The company also didn't like that he highlighted the product was a Tenda Router, according to a review site.

As one would imagine, this resulted to a Streisand effect, and many redditors were outraged by such actions. One of the commenters suggested that the reviewer should email to Mediabridge and complain about Mediabridge. Though its not sure that's what prompted the company to ban Mediabridge, but the US-based networking company's selling privileges are revoked as soon as it was possible.

Mediabridge didn't seem to like an end-user's review that he posted in Amazon about its Medialink router. But rather than taking it as a feedback, the company's lawyers threatened the user instead. The user then posted about the incident on Reddit, following the photo shots of the letters sent by the lawyers for MediaBridge.

The problem also escalated when the user highlighted that the Medialink MWN WAPR300N Wireless-N broadband router is actually a Tenda W36R router. The user also highlighted that the source of his claim is a review website small net builder who specifically mentioned that the Medialink MWN-WAPR300N router is in reality a Tenda 2368R, according to the FCC filings.

The user also expressed his opinion that some of these Amazon reviews are suspicious, and said that how can he trust Amazon review if he was legally threatened for leaving a negative review. In the end, the user posted that others should save their money and buy routers from established brands such as ASUS, TP-Link, Linksys or Cisco.

When Linksys announced its WRT54G-inspired WRT1900AC wireless router back at CES 2014, techies everywhere had a moment of nostalgia, and remembered the little blue router they had in their homes as children. Those techies can now own the throw-back as Linksys has just announced the release of the WRT1900AC 802.11ac wireless router.

The new WRT1900AC features a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 128MB of RAM, and eSATA and USB 3.0 ports for network storage. Speeds up to 300Mbps on 5Ghz, and up to 600Mbps on the 2.4Ghz band, with an 802.11ac connection are said to be achievable, and Linksys says that the WRT1900AC is the first consumer-grade Wi-Fi router to feature four antennas for added wireless coverage. TweakTown's own Tyler Bernath has one of these on his test bench right now and will have a review up soon!

Google says that it has already laid about 6,000 miles of fiber optic broadband cable throughout Kansas City, and now the company is ready to expand even further. The company plans on extending its Google Fiber coverage to residents in South Kansas City, Kansas City, Grandview, Raytown and Gladstone areas.

Google says that if there is enough demand in these areas and residents sign up with a $10 registration fee, then they will expand their fiber network to these areas just weeks after the signups are complete. There is a deadline to signup for Google Fiber and its ranges based on the area you live in so check the list below and sign up as fast as possible!

If you live or work in a building with a lot of other people that have their own Wi-Fi networks, you know firsthand that too many networks can cause interference for everyone and slow things down. A group of researchers from Stanford University is working on a new shared wireless network system called BeHop that is designed to make for faster wireless networking by sharing inside buildings.

BeHop is a single, dense Wi-Fi infrastructure that can be centrally managed, but allows individual users to manage their own portion like a private Wi-Fi network. Users on the Behop network will each get their own SSID, passwords, and other settings.

The big thing with this shared, yet private network is that it is set up using cheap consumer grade access points. The hardware used in the tests was provided by NetGear and runs custom firmware. The test system the researchers set up let the individual users name and secure their own networks just as they would if the router was in their room.

Today Buffalo announced the launch of three new high-speed AirStation wireless routers based on the open source DD-WRT firmware. The new AirStation AC 1750 WZR-1750DHPD, AirStation N600 WZR-600DHP2D, and the AirStation N300 WHR-300HP2D all feature DD-WRT Linux-based firmware that provides a high-performance and stable networking stack that is highly customization and community driven.

Buffalo says that the new generation of AirStation Wireless Routers provide high-performance networking, advanced features, and low-level device management while unlocking extensive capabilities with increased network stability. The company's decision to continue offering DD-WRT firmware in its routers offers consumers powerful features not found on other closed-source firmware-based routers of similar pricing points. DD-WRT provides the stability and configuration options needed for high-end home networking or the small business networking environment.

"Consumers and business professionals are demanding increased access and control of their wireless network configurations," said Matt Dargis, COO at Buffalo Americas (USA), Inc. "We launched new open source DD-WRT models of the AirStation router to address this rising demand, giving users the ability to unlock advanced capabilities of their wireless routers at a cost effective price. These features, such as PPTP, OpenVPN and VLAN, allow network administrators and programmers to enable advanced features typically unavailable in consumer-grade wireless routers."

Mike Davis who is a principal research scientist in IOActive found that Belkin WeMo home automation modules have multiple vulnerabilities which could endanger homes of half million users.

According to the report, the vulnerabilities found in Belkin WeMo devices can potentially cause threats to users' house from anything as serious as opening doors to wasting electricity.

The attackers can do to following via Belkin WeMo devices:

Hackers have exploited an 8 month old flaw in ASUS routers. This exploits allows the hacker to access the data stored in a storage drive that connected via the USB port of the router.

This vulnerability was found by a researcher called Kyle Lovett back in June of last year. Kyle also published an article on how this exploit works, followed by a temporary fix such as disabling FTP and AICLOUD. He pointed out in the article that more than 40,000 ASUS routers with USB ports for attaching storage drives are at potential risk.

Some users have also found a text file in their connected drives left by the hackers. The text file contained a following message educating users with exploited routers:

A self replicating worm called "TheMoon" is taking advantage of an authentication vulnerability found in Linksys E-Series routers product line-up. This was discovered by SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center who immediately posted a warning when Linksys E1000 and E1200 were found to be scanning IP address ranges on ports 80 and 8080.

The worm infects these routers by exploiting an authentication bypass vulnerability on the firmware. ISC explained that the worm would first connect to port 8080 and if its necessary, it uses a '/HNAP1/' URL. This would prompt an xml formatted list of the router and the firmware details. Once the worm knows that a particular router has that vulnerability, it exploits the script in the firmware after which allows access to such routers without authentication credentials. The worm simply spreads itself and stifles the remaining bandwidth. The worm is a 2MB file and it has a list of about 670 networks from different countries.

So far, these are the Linksys E-Serious routers that are known to get affected by TheMoon worm: E4200, E3200, E3000, E2500, E2100L, E2000, E1550, E1500, E1200, E1000, and E900. Linksys did provide a solution in their knowledge on how to prevent TheMoon malware affecting their routers. Linksys Router users simply need to enable 'Filter Anonymous Internet Requests' and power-cycle their router which should clear the cache and remove the malware if the router was already infected.

CES 2014 - Broadcom has just unveiled its super-speed 5G Wi-Fi chips, which will be capable of tripling the typical bandwidth found in the average consumers' home.

Broadcom announced the new technology at CES 2014, where it will make it easier to stream video through routers, gateways, STBs, digital TVs, and much more in the home. The company is offering up two 5G Wi-Fi systems that will hopefully break through any walls in any home, with the chips capable of reducing interference when one person plays an online game, while another streams video content from one device to another.

The new Broadcom BCM43569 wireless networking chip will allow smart TVs to receive both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals, simultaneously. Better yet, the BCM43602 can offline processing from a CPU for Wi-Fi networking, with both chips offering support for beamforming, or taking advantage of noise to increase available bandwidth.

Today, TRENDnet announced that it has began shipping its new TPE-1620WS 16-Port Gigabit Web Smart PoE+ Switch. The company says that this all metal, rack-mountable, managed PoE switch features 16 Gigabit PoE+ ports and two shared SFP slots.

Each of the 16 ports automatically support PoE+ (30 Watts) and PoE (15 Watts) power-connected devices. Featuring the company's GREENnet technology, the TPE-1620WS is capable of powering down the ports when they're not in use, which offers up to a 70 percent increase in power savings. TRENDnet says that the TPE-1620WS is available online and from participating retail partners at an MSRP of $529.99.

For years now, San Francisco citizens have wished for there to be a free Wi-Fi service in their parks, and now thanks to Google, 31 of the city's plazas, playgrounds, parks, and rec centers are getting just that. Google donated $600,000 to install the free service, which is still pending approval.

The $600,000 gift will cover the equipment, installation, maintenance and service for the next two years after which it is still uncertain what will happen to the networks. If things go as planned, installation will begin as early as November and would wrap up sometime in April of 2014, just in time for park weather. Advocates and Google hope that this installation will serve as a model that will eventually grow into a city-wide free Wi-Fi network.

A full list of the areas getting the new free Wi-Fi are listed below: