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FOR the past seven years, Bluetooth has had the bridesmaid's role in wireless technology. The concept of Bluetooth, allowing a range of devices to exchange information with each other in a secure environment over short distances, is neither especially new nor particularly radical.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group was founded in 1998, and has enjoyed the support of some big industry players such as Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba, all of which were charter sponsors.
Despite that support, and continual revision of the basic standard to ensure it connects a range of devices, even gadget fiends have tended to ignore Bluetooth until comparatively recently, casting its charms aside in favour of dalliance with its rivals.
One problem may be the relatively incomprehensible name (that of a 10th-century Danish king, and initially intended purely as a pre-release code-name), which lacks the snappiness and attractiveness of WiFi, for example.
Many users haven't examined Bluetooth because they've been happy with other wireless connectivity options. For connecting basic devices such as mice and keyboards, infrared is popular choice, while WiFi and wireless mobile networks dominate more data-centric applications. To some extent, those perceptions are a function of speed and range.
Using 2.4GHz radio technology, the current Bluetooth specification offers a maximum data rate of 1Mbps (although in practice this is generally somewhat lower), and an operating range of up to 10m.
That is more than enough to connect a keyboard to a PC, or for remotely directing a PowerPoint presentation, but it looks unimpressive next to other wireless standards such as WiFi.
Take-up of Bluetooth has been slow in the US.
This is partly because mobile phone adoption has been slower there than in the rest of the world, despite North America's leading role in PCs.
US users haven't yet realised that a wireless connection between a phone and a headset is a lot better than getting tangled in cords (a dearth of laws requiring hands-free mobile phones in cars is also a factor).
Elsewhere, Blue-tooth has been installed on numerous wireless keyboards and mice and in many personal digital assistants and cameras, but its most visible success has been as a means of hooking up headsets to mobile phones for ordinary voice calls.
On an ordinary mobile in this scenario, WiFi would be overkill and infrared would have directional problems.
Bluetooth's ability to hop between signals to minimise interference is also beneficial to phone users.
Fashion is becoming an increasingly important influence in this arena.
For instance, Motorola has formed a partnership with sunglasses designer Oakley to developer glasses that double as Bluetooth-powered headsets.
As with other wireless technologies, security has proved an occasional challenge.
You may think such security is unnecessary on basic devices such as a mouse, but a hacker with access to your Bluetooth keyboard could read passwords and other confidential information.
The Bluetooth security model combines encryption and a PIN in a pairing system to ensure that connections can't unwittingly be eavesdropped by other Bluetooth devices in the area.
Several theoretical attacks on Bluetooth networks have been reported by researchers, but real-world attacks appear comparatively rare.
Despite that, in the mobile phone arena, Bluetooth has already given rise to some urban myths, such as "toothing" (propositioning strangers on a train or in other public place by sending them a raunchy text message in the form of a business card via Bluetooth).
There was a rash of news stories on the "toothing phenomenon" in 2004, but the entire concept was subsequently revealed to be a hoax perpetrated by British journalist Ste Curran.
Its potential range of applications, just on mobile handsets, is much larger than flirting and chatting, but configuring more complex options, such as using Bluetooth to connect your notebook and your mobile then using the latter for network access, is often a fiddly and poorly documented process.
Future plans to extend the technology should lead to Bluetooth being deployed on a wider range of devices.
Bluetooth 2.0 promises to increase communication speeds to 3Mbps and range to 100m or more, although chips that support this are not yet widely available or being used by manufacturers.
The Bluetooth SIG is also working to make its specifications compatible with ultrawideband, which could offer much higher data rates and make Bluetooth a real contender for data applications and a stronger competitor to WiFi.
Other enhancements on the official Bluetooth roadmap include multicasting, which would, for instance, allow music from a single device to be sent to multiple headsets or speakers throughout a dwelling.
The existing specification allows up to seven connections via Bluetooth, but each of these is independent.
Another potential future for Bluetooth is in fixed-to-mobile convergence, which is effectively a service that allows use of the same phone to make mobile calls out of the house, but that reverts to using cheaper landline connections at home.
A properly configured fixed-to-mobile system would seamlessly roam users from one service to another when it passed through the front door of a house.
British Telecom introduced the first con-sumer version of such a service in June, branded Fusion (tellingly, the project was codenamed Bluephone during its development phase).
The router used to switch between landline calls, which are actually sent across ADSL using voice over internet protocol rather than conventional landlines, also doubles as a WiFi access point for surfing at home, but Bluetooth remains key to connecting the phone to the broadband network.
Researcher IDC predicts that similar services are likely to launch across the Asia-Pacific by the end of this year, although even the BT launch will essentially be a beta test this year.
As such services become more widespread, Bluetooth will continue to face competition from WiFi. Numerous WiFi-enabled handsets are also expected to appear throughout 2006.
Bluetooth may still be clinging to its bridesmaid status, but it looks a good chance to at least catch the bouquet.
WORKING THROUGH STANDARDS
A DECADE ago, options for getting rid of the tangle of cables around your PC and associated peripherals were limited.
Today's technology users have almost the opposite problem: a surfeit of standards that makes selecting the right option a confusing task.
The oldest option for wireless connectivity is infrared, which even non-PC users are familiar with because of its near-universal deployment in remote controls for audio-visual devices.
The big disadvantages of infrared are low speed (a maximum of 115Kbps) and the need for a line-of-sight connection.
It won't work if the infrared ports on the two devices aren't pointed more or less directly at each other.
Bluetooth is the logical successor to infrared in many ways, as it is more flexible and has greater range.
Its use of freely available radio spectrum gets around the line-of-sight problem, its transmission speed of 1Mbps makes applications such as audio transmission possible, and it has been rolled out in a much larger range of devices.
A rival to Bluetooth is ZigBee, derived from the 802.15.4b standard, which communicates at speeds lower than Bluetooth, typically 250Kbs, but over distances up to 100m.
The main applications for ZigBee are expected to be home automation, where relatively small amounts of data are exchanged.
Many ZigBee-enabled devices have been released, but the standard isn't expected to be ratified until 2006 at the earliest, so early adopters risk compatibility problems.
The wireless standard with the highest profile in recent years is WiFi, a catch-all term for a range of standards in the 802.11 family developed by the IEEE, a standards body.
Each of these runs at different speeds (802.11b at 11Mbps and 802.11g at 54Mbps are the most common), but offer the same basic functionality, allowing PCs and other devices to connect to a central network and access services, such as the internet, without cables. WiFi is hugely popular, but is mainly used as a replacement for networking cables, rather than other kinds of device connections.
WiFi devices consume large amounts of power, making it an unsuitable stan-dard for smaller devices such as phones. The range of options for wireless communications will be greater in the future.
Successors such as WiMax and ultrawideband will share data, but at higher speeds. WiMax is being heavily promoted by chip giant Intel.
It offers a greater transmission range, working at up to 50km, although its effective range is likely to be shorter. The first WiMax products are likely to be aimed at telecommunications companies, which can use them to provide last-mile broadband access in difficult-to-reach areas, but consumer products will eventually be available.
Emerging technologies are likely to require permission from communications regulators because of their use of high-speed spectrum, which could delay their deployment compared with the adoption curves for WiFi and Bluetooth.
Widespread adoption of WiMax is also expected to take some time, and notebooks supporting the standard aren't expected to be widespread before 2007.
However, Gartner analysts predict there will be more than a million WiMax connections by the end of 2006.
COOL HEADS ON THE MOVE
IF you've always had an eye on Bluetooth gear but found the cost hard to justify, the news is good.
Designed as a way of providing short-range wireless connection, Bluetooth can most readily be found in the mobile phone world, but is also appearing more frequently on laptops.
Once the preserve of top-end products, Bluetooth connections are starting to come down to the lower reaches of the market, Motorola companion products group general manager Bruce Hawver says.
In South America, Motorola will soon release a Bluetooth-equipped phone designed for the pre-paid market, and similar products are planned for other markets.
In Australia, Motorola launch a Bluetooth headset priced at a relatively inexpensive $59.95 in October.
The idea, Hawver says, is to bring Bluetooth into the mainstream.
To that end, Motorola has been working with other companies such as sunglasses maker Oakley and snowboarding outfit Burton to build Bluetooth connections into a range of lifestyle products.
Some of the new products have enough processing power for features such as voice number dialling and audio caller ID, Hawver says. Bluetooth equipment makers are having success tackling what has been an Achilles heel for the technology, its propensity to chew through batteries.
"As the new Bluetooth chipsets come out, they are getting better on power consumption," he says.
More people are starting to get Bluetooth gear after they buy their phone, he says. "It is becoming more of a fashion item."
Some Europeans are replacing Bluetooth headsets more often than they replace their phones, he says.
"There is a group of people our retailers have identified who come in pretty much every quarter and want the latest and greatest headset to show off to their friends."
Bluetooth, while popular in phones, is in its early stages in PCs, he says.
"One area where we think will get broader use is in voice over internet protocol. We are working on a number of initiatives in that space."
Motorola is pushing into home entertainment with headphones.
"The transition that we are most excited about is from mono to stereo," he says. |
