The Wi-Fi Alliance recently announced Wi-Fi Direct, a new peer-to-peer protocol that will enable direct connections between Wi-Fi client devices, allowing users to do everything from syncing data between a smartphone and a laptop to displaying pictures on a flat screen television or printing them on a wireless printer—all without requiring the user to join a traditional Wi-Fi network.

The WFA intends to finalize the specification by the end of 2009, and to begin certifying products in mid-2010. In the meantime, many chip manufacturers (and Wi-Fi Alliance member companies) are offering their own pre-specification solutions, including Atheros Direct Connect, Intel My WiFi Technology, and Marvell Mobile Hotspot—all of which should be easily upgradeable to the final specification next year.

In fact, interoperability with legacy devices is a key benefit of the protocol: not only will Wi-Fi Direct generally require just a simple software upgrade, but only one of the connecting devices (not both) has to be certified to the new specification.

“Any Wi-Fi CERTIFIED a or g device out there can make Wi-Fi Direct connections with devices that have been certified to the protocol,” says Wi-Fi Alliance marketing director Kelly Davis-Felner.

And Davis-Felner says it’s crucial to understand that Wi-Fi Direct is significantly different from (and much more secure than) ad hoc mode. “It has WPA2 security protections in place, and should be quite a bit easier to enable and use than ad hoc historically has been—and of course we expect it to be much more widely deployed,” she says.

Get the full story here at Wi-Fi Planet.com.