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Even spookier, the Bluetooth spec already defines an Intercom Profile for cases like this. Some headsets already support pairing to each other for use as short-range walkie talkies, such as a motorcycle driver and rider communicating between their helmets.

The trouble is, it doesn't seem widely implemented, because there's not much profit motive to do so. If there were a widely-publicized project that used these capabilities, it might spur manufacturers into supporting the odd little features...

The EU standard is HIPERMAN. The WiMax Forum FAQ says

The IEEE 802.16-2004 (256 OFDM PHY) and ETSI HiperMAN standards share the same PHY and MAC specifications. The WiMAX Forum is active in both standards organizations to ensure that a single global standard for Wireless MAN is adopted.

What this actually means is that the WiMax Forum is working to make sure that WiMax and HIPERMAN products interoperate (not that WiMax eats HIPERMAN or vice versa). US and EU must always make their own standards. It's more fun that way.

ZigBee will be using the 802.15.4 protocol. See http://www.palowireless.com/zigbee/articles.asp/ for details.

Actually, Bluetooth is not explicitly 2.4GHz. It frequency hops a band around 2.4GHz. It only keeps the same frequency for a few ms, before switching to another, which makes it rather noise immune: if a frequency is noisy, it just skips over to the next clear one. It's run by a special interest group (SIG) made up of several leading technology companies. More information on Bluetooth specifications.

It's definitely possible, that's what the AG/HS profiles and SCO were designed to do.

IF and WHEN manufacturers start implementing both the Audio Gateway and the Handset bluetooth profiles (providing multi-profile connections at the same time) we will be able to use our mobile (WiFi too seemingly) phones as FXS and FXO devices at the same time. Thus, an incoming call to your mobile would be passed to asterisk (or other soft-PBX), possibly checked against a blacklist etc., and then you can answer a call to your mobile phone from your desktop VoIP device, or, if you don't answer, have the caller leave a message in your local voicemailbox. Hey, you don't even need any extra telephone hardwarefor this!

If this doesn't sound intriguing, consider the possibilities in a corporate environment, utilizing bluetooth APs (one or more per floor) and routing calls from and to mobile phones. Mr. Boss' secretary would then be able to answer calls to Boss' mobile even when he's left the handset in his briefcase, while at the same time anyone using their cellulars to call landlines could get their calls routed through the landline interfaces instead of getting charged at mobile rates.

It's definitely possible, that's what the AG/HS profiles and SCO were designed to do.

IF and WHEN manufacturers start implementing both the Audio Gateway and the Handset bluetooth profiles (providing multi-profile connections at the same time) we will be able to use our mobile (WiFi too seemingly) phones as FXS and FXO devices at the same time. Thus, an incoming call to your mobile would be passed to asterisk (or other soft-PBX), possibly checked against a blacklist etc., and then you can answer a call to your mobile phone from your desktop VoIP device, or, if you don't answer, have the caller leave a message in your local voicemailbox. Hey, you don't even need any extra telephone hardwarefor this!

If this doesn't sound intriguing, consider the possibilities in a corporate environment, utilizing bluetooth APs (one or more per floor) and routing calls from and to mobile phones. Mr. Boss' secretary would then be able to answer calls to Boss' mobile even when he's left the handset in his briefcase, while at the same time anyone using their cellulars to call landlines could get their calls routed through the landline interfaces instead of getting charged at mobile rates.

A major problem Bluetooth is currently facing is interoperability. During the test it seems that some of the headsets were paired with different phones, but they were mostly Nokia phones (which supposedly do not differ too much when it comes to the BT implementation).

Buying one of those earpieces and trying to pair it with your [fill in brand here unless Nokia] phone could be difficult. Not to mention the BT dongle for the PC. If you were hoping for a hands-free headset that gives you more Counterstrike kills, you'll probably find that your dongle does not support the necessary profiles.

Bluetooth I can answer, but I'm so lazy I'm going to quote this instead:

By the way if, you're wondering where the Bluetooth name originally came from, it named after a Danish Viking and King, Harald Blatand (translated as Bluetooth in English), who lived in the latter part of the 10th century. Harald Blatand united and controlled Denmark and Norway (hence the inspiration on the name: uniting devices through Bluetooth). He got his name from his very dark hair which was unusual for Vikings, Blatand means dark complexion. However a more popular, (but less likely reason), was that Old Harald had a inclination towards eating Blueberries , so much so his teeth became stained with the colour, leaving Harald with a rather unique set of molars. And you thought your teeth were bad...

Apparantly it was a prototype name that stuck (most of the early work was done by the Scandanavian mobile firms Nokia and Ericsson), and never got changed. I'd rather that than AMD's approach of using the coolest prototype names (Sharptooth, Sledgehammer, Clawhammer) and replacing them with frankly rubbish model names (K6-3, Opteron, Athlon 64).

ZigBee is pretty rubbish though.

Ok so the idea is that you want to own your own hardware. you want it wireless and you want it as a big mesh network.

Have you thought of
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing?

whitepaper here

It's supposed to be great at handling multipath. and it's the foundation of the G4 mobile phones. There is talk of incorporating it into an 802.11 Wlan standard.

so don't worry about the doomsayers. there are smart people out there trying to make the world a better place.

________________________________________
The Spiders are Coming. Next episode: June 13, 2003

Actually, there are three classes of Bluetooth devices, with different power levels and accordingly different effective ranges: class 3 with 1 mW has a range of about 10 cm, class 2 with 2.5 mW has a range of about 10 metres, and finally class 1 with 100 mW has a range of 100 metres.

HTH.

Not again! This is the second time I see the file sco.c mentioned as an example of a file lifted from SCO's source code. It isn't!

Has nobody bothered to look at the code yet, and done some googling?! In the sco.c file, SCO refers to a "Synchronous Connection Oriented" link.

If you don't beleive me, then here's the entry in Palowireless' Bluetooth glossary. Didn't anybody here find the notion of having a source code file named after a particulary Unix brand a tad odd? At least odd enough to investigate a little further?

Herman Robak
herman@skolelinux.no
Skolelinux, Linux for Schools

(Bluetooth range is typically 10 meters for a class 2 device ).

In fact Nokia is trying to put the kind of lock on mobile data services which will have you begging Microsoft to come in and break-it-up. Microsoft know this - to quote: "If you go out to the likes of Nokia, and they'll talk forever about the mobile Internet as being this separate thing that sits out there side by side with the wired Internet that we all use for accessing from PCs and notebooks, and they also go out and evangelize standards that are separate for this mobile Internet."

Not at all: synchronization is one of the standardized Bluetooth profiles. If both devices are certified for that profile, that's all there is to it. Granted, the Palm-to-Palm-Desktop link is probably just using serial emulation and using the old Palm hotsync protocol over it.

But if he's putting his calendar and contacts on his Sony Ericsson phone, using only Apple's software, then it's definitely using a Bluetooth profile.

Not at all: synchronization is one of the standardized Bluetooth profiles. If both devices are certified for that profile, that's all there is to it. Granted, the Palm-to-Palm-Desktop link is probably just using serial emulation and using the old Palm hotsync protocol over it.

But if he's putting his calendar and contacts on his Sony Ericsson phone, using only Apple's software, then it's definitely using a Bluetooth profile.

Not at all: synchronization is one of the standardized Bluetooth profiles. If both devices are certified for that profile, that's all there is to it. Granted, the Palm-to-Palm-Desktop link is probably just using serial emulation and using the old Palm hotsync protocol over it.

But if he's putting his calendar and contacts on his Sony Ericsson phone, using only Apple's software, then it's definitely using a Bluetooth profile.

These are my favorite resources on this subject...

Bluetooth Resource Center

A Businessman's Comparison of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11b)

Empirical Study for IEEE 802.11 Aand Bluetooth Interoperability (PDF)

Wi-Fi will not make Bluetooth obsolete

These are my favorite resources on this subject...

Bluetooth Resource Center

A Businessman's Comparison of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11b)

Empirical Study for IEEE 802.11 Aand Bluetooth Interoperability (PDF)

Wi-Fi will not make Bluetooth obsolete

Yikes... a +5 for what basically amounts to this question:

Is there anything here that infrared didn't try to solve?

Why yes! There's this problem with infrared called "line-of-site." Bluetooth is not affected by it. Nobody wants to use infrared because of this problem.

Bluetooth is the same way - you have to be so close that it's not really useful for much other than wireless keyboards and headphones.

Huh? Bluetooth works within a 10cm to 100m range! Read this:

http://www.palowireless.com/infotooth/knowbase/gen eral/10.asp

Bluetooth devices are failing for the same reasons infrared ports don't get used

Hmmm, how many bluetooth devices have hit the market so far? Zero? One? Two? I haven't seen any. I love people that claim a market is failing when it hasn't even started yet.

You probably think Internet Appliances are dead, too, right?

Is there something that you would actually pay an extra $30 to add to your small battery-operated device

Where did you get this number from? $30? Says who? Sure it'll be expensive at first, what isn't? Eventually the cost will be so small that you won't even notice it in the price of a device.

Also, there is a TON of stuff that Bluetooth could do that infrared cannot. For example:

- You could have an earbud for your cellphone that does not require a wire to connect to the phone, which could be in your pocket, next to you in your car, etc.

- You could have a bluetooth mouse and keyboard without anything sitting on your desk to accept the IR, since the range of bluetooth could easily reach your PC if it's near your desk.

- You could have a bluetooth pen that sends what it is writing to your PDA or laptop, for archival.

Try thinking out of the box a little bit, first.