Wireless Tech to Cut HDTV Cord

Electronics companies are finally going to get rid of that ugly cord running from your lovely HDTV to its cable box. At least three different wireless high-definition technologies will be duking it out beginning Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and manufacturers promise you’ll be able to buy them by next Christmas, the AP reports.

The best of the bunch is WirelessHD, which can send data from cable boxes, DVD players, and computers to the TV without any compression. But the signal won’t go through walls, a limitation purposely inserted to ease the movie industry's file-sharing worries. Rival ultra-wideband (UWB) has an even shorter range, and requires some compression, and one company is pushing plain old WiFi. (More television stories.)