The WUSB products are based on the WiMedia Alliance UWB radio, which happens to be the exact same UWB radio which is powering the upcoming boost in speed for Bluetooth. The technology is a very wide pipe, with multiple PAL’s sitting on top of a Common Radio Platform. WUSB has had a difficult start with some technical problems, that are being ironed out. Kensington has a dock out, Dell and Lenovo are shipping notebooks with UWB radios built in, and a handful of various peripherals are starting to come to market, such as a UWB harddrive that sits in your backpack but is available, so say… that UMPC or netbook you’re working on. WUSB will compete head to head with the speed boosted bluetooth once both are on the same base UWB radio, can’t predict if both will continue of one will kill the other off, both are possibilities. The launch of WUSB has served to help work out the kinks of the technology, which will help both the Bluetooth and eventual IP PAL’s to roll out smoother. Cost of the UWB radio has kept adoption rates low, as the early radios are a bit expensive for consumer products to carry. Remember, early Bluetooth radios were over $8 each, now they’re under $2. The same will happen over time to this new radio technology, and once that happens, and the value proposition to have one improves, adoption will take off. Keep in mind, that right now, its only WUSB with a limited set of peripherals. Not too many peripherals since there aren’t that many hosts to connect to. Not too many hosts, since there aren’t that many peripherals. That egg thing. In the near future though, once Bluetooth is on the radio as well, and/or IP along side of WUSB, now we’ve got more reason to incur the cost, and more reason for a consumer to spend a few more bucks to get it. We’re just not there yet, be patient.

I’m not too hopeful; the official site of WUSB is like a Soviet-style introduction to colective farming – less than awe-inspiring
http://www.usb.org/developers/wusb

and I’m guessing WUSB has the potential to cause a lot of interference. Here in the UK concern is growing about wired homeplugs and there’s even an official petition!
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/SaveShortwave/

It’ll probably take off eventually, bluetooth and wifi had trouble early on too. I suspect in the next year we’ll start to see more devices with WiUSB

I had an R400 for a while and I was very under-whelmed with the performance of the WUSB. Even at a range of 6″ (well within the advertised 30″ range), the throughput was pretty low. Audio was unstable, burning to an external DVD burner was unpredicable, certain USB devices like my WD external hard drive were not supported, and the monitor resolution was limited to 1280×800 (which looked horrible on a 1920×1200 monitor). Given, I might have had a bad unit, but Toshiba’s customer support wasn’t willing to warranty it unless I had bought it through them (I bought it through a reseller – who wouldn’t warranty it either). At any rate, if you can, try before you buy…

It hasn’t taken off because it is too expensive. The chips have been running at $15 a piece and that is too expensive for laptop/desktop manufacturers to incorporate it as a standard feature. Bluetooth and Wifi took off as standard features when their price dropped to $5 per chip. This is expected to happen with wireless usb next year, and it could lead to it becoming more mainstream. Wireless usb has real advantages over wifi and bluetooth in terms of data transfer rates and power consumption. I think it will find a place in the world of consumer electronics in the next couple of years, it was just a little slow in getting started.

looks like the only one even making the chips just closed up shop.

I agree I bet it was over manufactures wanting everything their own way with out compromise.

May now that the disappointing trend in Bluetooth is simply to support the headset profile HSP, since less devices now work with OBEX, DUN, PAN. heck even the MP3 playing iPhone wont work with A2DP or HID (iPhone would be a killer device if I could pair my keyboard with it for long email responses while I’m remote)

If we could simply get a full Bluetooth implementation with VDP (Video Distribution Profile) or GAVDP (General Audio/Video Distribution Profile) you could have a cable-less docking station.

But it would seem the support for all these existing profiles is lacking… OSX is horrible with BT, Microsoft isn’t much better and don’t even get me started on linux (altho it is getting much better) Cell phone providers want to limit all the features. No one is interested in providing a useful device.

Imagine if Apple added the GAVDP BT support to the apple TV and iPhone/iPod you could wirelessly watch your video’s on your TV with no cables.

bluetooth doesn’t have anywhere near the bandwidth of USB. Ever tried to, say, sync a palm via BT? (compared to USB it’s dreadfully slow). No way would it work for monitors.

It sounds like you’re describing Bluetooth. I would speculate that what killed WUSB was the usual disagreements over standards and reluctance of manufacturers to invest in a standard that would pit itself against BT (a technology that people were already warming up to.)