$10 chip puts Australia on the fast track Professor Stan
Skafidis of Melbourne University. Photo: Neil Newitt A new
silicon chip developed in Melbourne is predicted to
revolutionise the way household gadgets like televisions, phones
and DVD players talk to each other. The tiny five-millimetre-a-
side chip can transmit data through a wireless connection at a
breakthrough five gigabits per second over distances of up to 10
metres. An entire high-definition movie from a video shop kiosk
could be transmitted to a mobile phone in a few seconds, and the
phone could then upload the movie to a home computer or screen
at the same speed. The "GiFi" was unveiled today at the
Melbourne University-based laboratories of NICTA, the national
information and communications technology research centre. "I
believe in the longer term every consumer device will have this
technology," said project leader, Professor Stan Skafidas, who
with his team spent almost a decade developing the chip. Hotly
contested area Short-range wireless t