January 4, 2001 1:34pm
Will Bluetooth Bite Soon?
By Sarah L. Roberts-Witt PC Magazine
The technology that lets different wireless devices
communicate should finally be real this spring. you've
heard the scenarios. In one, you're sitting on an
airplane across the aisle from your colleague, and the
two of you are wirelessly zapping data back and forth
as you collaborate on the presentation you'll be giving
shortly after you land. You'll soon be able to do this and
lots of similar things thanks to Bluetooth, the
short-range wireless radio technology that allows the
transmission of data and voice in any format between
devices at distances up to about 30 feet.
Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia have all announced
plans to ship Bluetooth-enabled cell phones equipped
with wireless headsets and modems by the end of the
first quarter of 2001. Compaq and Hewlett-Packard
intend to release Bluetooth PC Cards for laptops during
the same period.
Also, Handspring intends to ship Bluetooth-ready
versions of its Visor PDA, though Palm announced that
it will wait until the price of chips drops. According to a
recent report from Cahners In-Stat Group, more than 1
billion Bluetooth-enabled units will be shipping annually
by 2005.
A bullish figure, but before that forecast is borne out,
some significant wrinkles still have to be ironed out.
One important problem is that the current Bluetooth
spec gets confused when it attempts to synchronize
data among more than two devices. If you have a cell
phone, a PDA, and a laptop turned on at the same time
and you're trying to share contact information for a
client among them, Bluetooth doesn't know where to
turn or what to do.
"Out of the gate, Bluetooth is one-to-one, but that
should get resolved in 2002," says Rob Enderle, vice
president at Giga Information Group. "Still, we will see
Bluetooth laptops, cell phones, and PDAs hit the street
en masse this year." |
