We see the standard being expanded horizontally to address the specific needs of new markets such as energy efficiency, in-car networking, data-center networking and content delivery.

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An unnamed car company invited owners to a social networking site and then proceeded, in the words of one owner, to act very corporately.

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Once WLAN is adopted for in-car entertainment, the technology could also be used for road-safety and traffic-networking functions.

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Qiming Ventures has five Chinese portfolio companies in the cue to go public soon: ramped up car rental service eHi from Shanghai, dating site Jiayuan, online video programming PPLive, social networking service Kaixin001 and kids entertainment site Taomee.

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