Bluetooth

Computerworld - If information appliances do outsell PCs by 2002, as market studies project, a technology called Bluetooth will come into its own. Bluetooth will connect all kinds of devices wirelessly and (its backers hope) effortlessly. At 0.1W of power and a potential cost of $5 or less per device in mass-market volume, Bluetooth is both low-powered and relatively low-priced - qualities that make it ideal for mobile appliances.

With a single, small radio chip, Bluetooth technology can replace cumbersome cable connections in all sorts of devices, from laptops to headphones to printers. It's likely to turn up in the second half of this year in some high-priced cellular phones and as an option on some laptops.

On your laptop, Bluetooth will provide a simple way to wirelessly send pages to a printer or to hook up to the Internet by connecting wirelessly with your Bluetooth-enabled cellular phone. Your cell phone itself could reside safely in your pocket as you have a conversation over a Bluetooth wireless headset such as the one recently demonstrated by Ericsson Datacom Inc. in Burlington, Mass.

But Bluetooth can do more than just replace point-to-point cables. Its supporters say a second wave of applications will follow next year. We could see Bluetooth used to join multiple devices into an instant, ad hoc network. Some envision executives in a meeting linking their handheld computers to compare agendas or to exchange virtual business cards. A speaker's laptop could wirelessly "squirt" its slides to an LCD projector.

Another advanced use would be Internet or LAN access points - by standing near the access point, your cell phone or handheld could log on at a quite respectable speed of 721K bit/sec.

Bluetooth was proposed two years ago by Ericsson, IBM, Intel Corp., Nokia Corp. and Toshiba Corp., which formed the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). They have since been joined by almost 2,000 companies. The technology is named for 10th century Danish King Harald Blaatand (Blue Tooth), who unified Scandinavia. The blue logo that will identify Bluetooth-enabled devices is derived from the runes for his initials.

When the technology was first announced in May 1998, there were optimistic predictions that Bluetooth products would flood the market by late 1999. But various factors have worked against that scenario, including the hesitance of Microsoft Corp. to commit to the Bluetooth protocol. The software maker finally joined the SIG in December, opening the door to Bluetooth support in Windows and on Pocket PCs.

How It Works

Bluetooth is essentially a radio transceiver operating in a spread-spectrum mode; it changes frequency for every data packet some 1,600 times per second. This synchronized frequency-hopping, together with low power that limits range to a few feet, is what enables one Bluetooth connection to avoid interfering with another. Bluetooth is, in fact, both a hardware specification and a software framework for interoperation, each designed to be implemented on a single chip.