<p>In recent years, Wi-Fi has experienced explosive growth in new applications such as telephony (smartphones) and audio/video distribution (Internet-connected DVRs). As the number of ‘hotspots’ and the coverage area grows, Wi-Fi is taking on aspects of a ‘utility’ that goes well beyond its humble cable replacement roots. It’s not hard to imagine that soon practically every phone and TV will have Wi-Fi built in as a standard feature.</p>
<p> Today all & sundry, devices included, have to be “connected”, 24/7, all year round. You may have a Facebook account, but what about your oscilloscope? Does your multimeter tweet enough? Is your soldering iron linked in? You may be a noncommunicative nerd but your bench power supply may be craving for social interaction. With the add-on board described in this article you can hook up anything to everything, with or without wires.</p>
<p>The R32C microcontroller goes Internet! A small add-on module for the application board from our September<br /> 2009 issue combines a TCP/IP chip plus Ethernet interface, a network connection with built-in transformer and<br /> status LEDs. This handy combination makes it child’s play to implement a web server and many other Internet<br /> applications without getting involved in complexities such as TCP/IP protocol. Free downloads of an Open<br /> Source driver, a short web server program and other sample software complete this attractive proposition.</p>