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Wire
Today, Bluetooth Tomorrow
With
very few products out on the market that make use of the Bluetooth wireless
standard, there is talk that there is too much hype and too many promises.
It seems there's been a cooler reception for the wireless technology in
recent months, due to doubts about the technology's time to market, and
continued broad tech weakness. But there are many enthusiastic supporters
who still hail Bluetooth. Several executives from top-tier companies
acknowledged that they've been working hard behind-the-scenes to test
Bluetooth, so it works how it's supposed to - every time, with every device.
It's one reason more Bluetooth products aren't on the market already. Some
say it's set to heat up again in the first quarter of 2001, once a wave of
Bluetooth-based products hits store shelves.
PHILIPS
Philips Semiconductors introduced a second-generation Bluetooth baseband
controller chip called Blueberry that it claimed is the most integrated
Bluetooth device on the market. The Blueberry will be interoperable with all
major mobile phone and PC manufacturers. Mobile-product manufacturers can
thus minimize time to market, achieve greater design flexibility and lower
development costs.
INTEL
Intel's road map includes eventually integrating Bluetooth support at the
silicon level. The company plans to offer add-on Bluetooth products for PCs
in 2001 via USB adapters and PC cards. A project code-named
"Ambler" is intended to speed the integration of Bluetooth in
Intel products. Every notebook will ship with Bluetooth capability in three
to five years. Other Intel efforts to drive wireless connectivity include
increasing CPU power in notebooks to 1GHz in the first half of 2001 and to
1.2GHz in the second half of next year.
NOKIA
Nokia at the Bluetooth Developers Conference introduced its first Bluetooth
wireless connectivity offering for linking phones to PCs, but what the
company described as limitations in the United States will keep the package
unavailable domestically until approximately late 2001. The Nokia
Connectivity Pack, due to ship in Europe and Asia in early 2001, is intended
to enable a Nokia model 6210 mobile phone as a GSM (Global System for Mobile
communications) modem, able to connect to a laptop within a range of 10
meters. The Connectivity Pack features a connectivity battery and a
connectivity card with a PC adapter, which will enable downloading of
e-mail, Internet browsing, and faxing.
3COM
3Com unveiled a Bluetooth Access Point, a device that provides a fixed
interface for up to seven Bluetooth-enabled devices to connect to a network.
Expected to be available next summer priced around $500, the access point
could be used in offices, airports, or other networked public places. Many
users could get wireless access to networks through a single Access Point.
Because it has a high-power radio, the Access Point also increases
Bluetooth's range from 10 meters to 100 meters, which will make it a little
higher cost.
ERICSSON
Ericsson has introduced an embedded Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
server that also has built-in Bluetooth support. WAP enables devices such as
wireless phones and handhelds to access Internet data. The company claims
the tiny Bluetooth-enabled WAP server allows vendors to add both
technologies not just to phones and handhelds, but also to products such as
set-top boxes, cars, kiosks and items like locks for homes. That would
enable a person with a WAP phone to draw a lot of information from a public
information kiosk that was Bluetooth-enabled. The server would essentially
turn those devices into WAP servers and users of WAP phones could access the
server via Bluetooth, enabling remote control of those devices.
BLUETOOTH ON THE HORIZON
Because Bluetooth is a hardware specification, Bluetooth components should
be similar across vendors. The only differences lie in price and the
software because each vendor has developed its own software suite to go with
the add-ons. The first wave of products will feed the need for Bluetooth
hungry consumers until these new devices are released. By next year,
Bluetooth should let people automatically synchronize records on PCs and
hand-helds any time the two devices come into proximity.
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