Cisco develops smart robot nodes to maintain network connectivity.

nick — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:59:00 +0100

I found this via slashdot ....

Military & Aerospace Electronics - Cisco develops smart robot nodes to maintain network connectivity while on the move Company engineers built prototype cube-shaped robots that sense when a laptop computer user is about to lose wireless network connectivity and move toward the user to maintain the network link, said Dave Buster, product marketing manager for the Cisco Global Government Solutions Group (GGSG) in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

Ok, on first glance you think, how cool what a gimmick, and then you smile as you see the colour from your IT security officers face drain away... the chances are that they have spent hours tuning the radios so that very little WIFI leaks outside the building, now imaging a robot that will follow you outside and all that effort is wasted. I think there's a good lesson here, obscurity isn't security, if your WIFI is rock solid then a little exposure won't be a problem.

In general I think the idea is good, as it could allow you to cover area's dynamically, i.e. if robots could make their way over to the meeting rooms or canteen when usage went up that would be cool, but I guess that would cause problems with free channels etc, what about the idea of a sony dog with a wi-fi repeater in ? You could have one AP inside, and that could follow you out to the garden ! Oh the possibilities ! :cool:

LINICKX.com

Cisco develops smart robot nodes to maintain network connectivity.