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Magnets To Replace Bluetooth?
aceat64 writes "News.com is carrying a story that suggests magnets could eventually replace Bluetooth as a cheaper and more energy effiect wireless solution. The concept of magnetic induction isn't new, but Aura has managed to shrink the technology onto a single chip. The first device to be made using the technology is a wireless headset that will cost between $60 and $80."
Talk about lack of ambition.
This is JUST what we need! A bunch of wild magnetic fields around our electrical equipment! I can't wait to get an adapter for my computer, there's space in the case right next to my hard drive...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Correct me if i'm wrong but dont most Radio transmission technologies use some form of magnetic induction in order to achieve their goal. Last i heard passing electricity through a coil produces a magnetic field. Whats new here?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
All my credit cards seem to be erased.
Expect carrier pigeons crashing into your cell phone.
Magnets... the geek's natural enemy, even more so than fresh air and natural light.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Bad news for Iron Man.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I'm positively repelled by this, flux you very much.
Just another day in Paradise
So the hapless doofi who've spent years thinking a) magnets can heal them and b) phones can give them cancer must be delighted with this new headset; it'll fix those brain tumours right up.
D'you think it's coincidence that the company who came up with this is called Aura?
How can you replace a technology that nobody actually *uses*?
I can just now see the new line of infomercials talking about combining the freedom of a wireless headset and the 'healing power' of magnets! Sweet Jesus...
'At the heart of the new interest in what's known as "magnetic induction" is Aura, or so claims the nine-year-old chipmaker'
quick, somebody stop these fiends!
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
Developed in the late 1950s, magnetic induction never really caught on
Gee, silly me, and I always thought Faraday developed "magnetic induction" and that it was in wide use. But, hey, it has turned out that, contrary to my own silly ideas, Gates actually invented the Internet and that BT invented the hyperlink, so I must be wrong on Faraday as well.
I'm wearing metal braces, you insensitive clod!
also in news, segways could eventually replace cars on commuting, rocket packs could eventually replace aeroplanes, slashdotter could eventually get laid..
you get it, anything could eventually do anything.
(and bluetooth is not useless, obsolote tech. it's pretty useful, and if you're bitchin that you don't need a cellular then it really doesn't make much sense to bitch about not needing bluetooth fo r it)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I installed one at my home yesterday, and today my hard drive isn't working and my monitor's got all sorts of funny colors on it. I'm posting this from work... I think I'll install one here to trouble shoot.
Just a se
--
RumorsDaily
A broadcast antenna is a magnet, an electromagnet, one that changes polarity many times per second, and that varying electromagnetic field is what induces a response in the receiving antenna. This is called radio transmission (see Marconi, or better yet look up Heinrich Hertz or James Clerk Maxwell.) If this so-called technology is claiming to transmit information using a static magnetic field they are full of little red ants. Phooey.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"Hey, look over there it's bluetooth!"
"What, where?"
"Oh, sorry, you missed it."
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Like many here, I was very skeptical when I read this article -- the reporter is clearly a total sci/tech ignoramus (you gotta love the totally redundant "cordless cell phone").
So I went to Aura's website for more info. Here's their blurb:
While the concepts behind magnetic induction communication have been around for decades, Aura's engineers are the first to develop and implement practical solutions capturing the benefits of this technology.
Conventional radio frequency (RF) wireless communication systems are optimal for sending large amounts of information and communicating over long distances. However, this consumes power, creates information security issues, and results in interference and "crowding" among devices. A good example is in the 2.4 GHz band where simultaneous operation of a cordless phone, WiFi network and Bluetooth headset is frequently not possible without severe degradation of Quality of Service. In sharp contrast, LibertyLink's magnetic communication operates in a "bubble" that envelops the personal space of each user and is - by the laws of physics - inherently private and secure. The result is an easier to use, lower-cost system that makes far more efficient use of power and bandwidth than conventional RF solutions. By selecting a technology that limits the range and bandwidth to only what the application requires, Aura achieves a very substantial savings in power with all of the simplicity advantages of LibertyLink: dedicated communication channels, no bandwidth sharing, complete frequency re-use between bubbles, worldwide regulatory flexibility, and reliable coexistence with WiFi, CDMA, TDMA. and GSM transmissions.
Still pretty vague -- how the hell do they handle interference issues in this "magnetic bubble"? Do they supply Faraday cages for your PC/monitor?
Actually, I have to wear a hearing aid in one ear due to mid-ear damage, and I'm expecting before long to have an inductive loop for my cell phone that means handsfree use without any kind of additional earpiece. Apart from convincing people that I'm completely mad and talking to myself in the street, it should be a considerable improvement over bluetooth headsets, which, compared to either of my hearing aids, are heavy and have poor frequency response.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
1 - They complement each other, yes, and they are intimately interrelated.. but they are not the same thing (for practical purposes). If you have a bar magnet in front of you, is their an electric field around it? no, there isn't.
2 - A cruise of the whitepapers indicates that the magnetic field strength is related to distance via 1/d^6, as opposed to radiated power, where it's relatd to 1/d^2. This means a much sharper dropoff in power... meaning the point beyond which there is a negligible power level is much sharper.
3 - A magnetic field and RF radiation are not the same thing.. one transmits energy over distance (RF).. the other puts that energy into sustaining a field (Magnetic)
4 - What you are saying about frequencies applies to RF. This is not about RF. The mention of a high frequency, relatively unused ISM band probably refers to the EM side effects of the devices. (a 10Ghz oscillator, even if it's used via induction, sitll creates a 10Ghz EM signal)
5 - "Used by Industrial, Scientific, and Medical" as they said in the article, is most likely just the reporter trying to sound smart.. but that's usually abbreviated as "ISM", and covers the fun 900Mhz and 2.4Ghz bands we already love and know, as well as others....
6 - interference is not an issue for practical purposes because this thing has a high field strength within the bubble, and virtually none outside. Any inteferer would have to be really strong, or really close.
It's vague, but I think this means it it using the "near field" instead of the propagating field. A transmitting antenna emits two fields: a propagating electromagnetic wave (i.e. light) whose intensity drops off like 1/r^2, and a nonpropagating electromagnetic field that drops off like 1/r^4 (which is why it's called the near field). It can carry a lot of power, but since it doesn't go anywhere it is usually ignored.
If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.
I really hope you're just trying to be funny and doing a poor job of it, but in case you're serious...
I keep waiting for a gas pump that "recognizes" my gasoline credit card device and waits for me to "fill it up."
Uh, hate to break it to you, but those have been around since the mid to late 90's, when Mobil introduced the SpeedPass. I've had one since long before I ever heard of Bluetooth. Now they are used at Exxon and Mobil stations all over the place. I think McDonald's even did testing a while back in California, IIRC, where people could pay for their drive-thru purchases via SpeedPass-- dunno if that's going to go national. When they launched it, it came in two varieties-- a small cylinder for your keyring that must be waved in front of a spot on the pump, and a transponder meant to be stuck inside your car's window that is "read" by an overhanging antenna when the car first pulls up to the pump (sort of like the E-Z Pass system some states have for toll roads). I think the stick-on transponder SpeedPass has been phased out, because I see no reference to it on the website.
Have a hard time getting a paper receipt, though. Keep getting a message saying "Your receipt is inside."
Where I live, gas pumps have been accepting credit cards right at the pump for at least 10 years, and have been printing their own receipts right at the pump as well. My SpeedPass account is even configured to assume I want a receipt when I gas up, so the pump just spits one out without asking when I'm done filling my tank.
I won't even tell you what I can do with my Macs running OS X and my Bluetooth phone, it may make your head explode. No flying cars yet, though.
I suggest you move to a state where people aren't too busy dating their relatives to embrace technological advances. By the way, the North won.
N&V covered this in the June 2003 issue along with RFID and UWB. Page 22 for those who can get access to a backissue (say at the library or somewhere like that)
One problem (that's easily fixed) with the magnetic system is that both transmitting and receiving coils have to be parallel. If they're at 90 degrees little or no signal gets through. The fix for it happens to be using 3 coils, each one 90 degrees from each other on the receiver. The transmitter only needs one, but no matter how that one is oriented one of the 3 coils in the receiver can pick it up. I haven't heard of any other chips, but the LibertyLink chip from Aura Communications can automatically select the coils on it's own.
Very short range, but it works for something like a wireless headset where range doesn't matter anyways.
Dear God! I don't think the aluminum foil in my deflector beanie is thick enough to handle all that! Quick, get me some sheet metal!