Display power point slides from your smartphone on a client’s video projector wirefree!!

Wi-Fi Direct makes it happen!!

 

Wi-Fi Direct, formerly known as Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer, is a set of software protocols that allow Wi-Fi devices to talk to each other without the need for wireless access points (hot spots).

 

With Wi-Fi Direct, devices will be able to connect to one another easily for permanent or temporary connections, without requiring them to join the network of a nearby wireless router.

 

Instead, you’ll just push a button or tap the “OK” button in an on-screen dialog box, and your devices will link up to each other.

 

Wi-Fi Direct essentially embeds a software access point, or “soft AP”, into any device that wishes to support Direct. The soft AP provides a version of Wi-Fi Protected Setup with its push-button or PIN based setup.  When a device enters the range of the Wi-Fi Direct host, it can connect to it using the existing ad hoc protocol, and then gather setup information using a Protected Setup-style transfer.

 

Wi-Fi Direct-certified devices can connect one-to-one or one-to-many.

 

Thus Wi-Fi Direct connections can be used to show images from your camera on a friend’s HDTV, display PowerPoint slides from your smartphone on a client’s video projector, send web pages from your tablet to a printer, or even stream HD video from your laptop to your TV.

 

Does that raise your “security” shackles ?

 

Soft AP’s can be as simple or as complex as the role requires. A digital picture frame might provide only the most basic services needed to allow digital cameras to connect and upload images. A smart phone that allows data tethering might run a more complex soft AP that adds the ability to bridge to the Internet.

 

The standard also includes WPA2 security and features to control access within corporate networks.  The question is how securely would people configure it?  Let us wait and watch the developments in this area.