The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced a new Wi-Fi specification that allows devices to directly connect to each other. The new specification is called Wi-Fi Direct and it has launched today. 

The alliance has started to certify products for Wi-Fi Direct already and so far there are five certified chipsets ready to be integrated into devices from companies like Atheros, Broadcom, Intel, Ralink, and Realtek. The goal of the new specification and hardware is to allow devices to directly connect to each other to exchange data like files and images without needing a hotspot.

The interesting part of the new specification is that only one of the devices needs Wi-Fi Direct. Any Wi-Fi enabled device can connect to the Wi-Fi Direct device and both devices can share data over the connection.

"We designed Wi-Fi Direct to unleash a wide variety of applications which require device connections, but do not need the internet or even a traditional network," said Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance.  "Wi-Fi Direct empowers users to connect devices - when, where and how they want to, and our certification program delivers products that work well together, regardless of the brand." 

Wi-Fi Direct is a software suite that will "at some point" be offered for download wirelessly to a device. Presumably that will mean existing devices can take advantage of Wi-Fi Direct as well. The new specification is also secure with connections using WPA2 authentication and encryption. These security protocols are automatically part of launching a Wi-Fi Direct connection.

The new specification has other uses as well and Rob Enderle, an analyst from Enderle Group said, "[Wi-Fi direct will evolve into a way for users to] piggyback on a Wi-Fi Direct network connection and then connect to the Web where you might otherwise not be able to."