Science fiction remains the only realm in which a full-length movie can be downloaded wirelessly within seconds.
That could change, however, if IBM and Taiwanese partner MediaTek succeed in creating chipsets based on millimeter wave technology. In an announcement Monday, the companies said their technology would let users download a 10 gigabyte file in five seconds.
That's more than 100 times faster than the 10 minutes it would take to use current generation Wi-Fi technology.
That kind of speed would also let people free their living rooms of wire connections and allow audio and high-definition video content to flow among televisions, computers, and handheld devices.
"This collaborative effort will enable consumers to wirelessly transfer large multimedia data files around their home and/or offices in seconds," T.C. Chen, vice president, science and technology, IBM Research, said in a statement. "This will enable a world where you can have your entertainment when you want and where you want it."
The technology seeks to harness the highest frequency portion of the radio spectrum, which can accommodate huge flows of data. How long it will take to develop the chipsets remains unclear, though IBM demonstrated a prototype in February 2006.
Ten-year-old MediaTek designs chips for wireless communications and digital media. Its stock is traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.