Word is floating around the internet that a Japanese company is looking to test streaming wireless video in moving cars. According to a report, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, up to one hundred cars in the city of Osaka will be fitted with recievers capable of picking up WiMAX video signals and displaying them clearly.
One of the big problems with current wireless technology has been establishing stability whilst on the move. Of the three big wireless providers in Australia, only one has the technology in place currently to transmit to a moving vehicle, and that can be shakey at best.
WiMAX is going to be the next big thing in wireless technology, superceeding current Wi-Fi protocols, and if these experiments prove to be successful we may finally have a solid, mobile wireless option.
Whilst in-car, we can see this having limited use (it is currently illegal in Australia to have a television playing in the front seat of a car whilst it is in motion), its application in terms of public transport is huge. Television and other data streamed right to your laptop whilst you're on the train, or to screens on buses as you travel to work. The protocol as a whole has much wider implications of course, but it will be very interesting to see how successful its implementation is in a mobile environment.
