VR-Zone

Software screenshots are generally not that exciting, but we've gotten our hands on a slide that unveils a lot of upcoming features that will make an appearance in Intel's upcoming Wi-Fi utility called My WiFi Dashboard which is finally getting some Wi-Fi Direct support. The significant thing here is that it allows you to connect to other Wi-Fi devices much in the same way as you connect to Bluetooth devices.

Intel has thrown in a few extra features beyond the basics of Wi-Fi Direct, although you do of course get things like file transfer support and synchronization of smartphones, tablets and other computers. For some reason Intel has also added a chat feature, although we're not entire certain how useful chat over peer-to-peer Wi-Fi really is.

More useful then is the ability to set up your notebook as a Wi-Fi hotspot, a feature you'd think ought to be standard this day in age, yet is anything but. In as much as Intel has added a far bit of functionality, we can't say that we're sold on the round UI of Intel's My WiFi Dashboard, as it looks like one of those dreadful motherboard utilities from a few years back that were nearly unusable thanks to the poor UI.

We're not sure when Intel is planning on launching its new utility, but it should at the latest be out alongside the new Ivy Bridge powered notebooks that are set to arrive in early April. Now we just need to cross our fingers that some notebook makers pick Intel's Wi-Fi options over more affordable third party options with at least for the time being, fewer features.