802.11b for cellphones coming soon

Japanese component manufacturer Alps Electric has announced a miniature 802.11b wireless LAN chip that it says should be appearing in an unspecified cellphone soon. Power consumption, one of the main hurdles to putting 802.11b in cellphones, looks like it won't be a problem, as the new chip only draws about a milliwatt (around 50 milliwatts was the previous norm, so Alps says). They're planning to get the chip into PDAs and digital cameras too, but it looks like talks with the phone manufacturers are furthest along at the moment.

[Via ITmedia (Japanese)]