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Is Bluetooth Dead?
An anonymous reader writes "According to the EETimes, Bluetooth is dead. From the article: "In a few short years, many will look back on Bluetooth as a lesson on marketing gone awry". So what do ya'll think? Does he have a point, or is Bluetooth not quite dead yet?"
I mean, Microsoft is supporting it, so it's got that going for it. Although, the latest Intellipoint/type drivers (5.0) that support it are seriously crippled, which will keep me away from it.
But *BSD sure the hell is.
FP, you insensitive clod!
...guess that means that BSD supports it?
It has joined BSD in the great beyond.
It was crap anyways.
it probably just needs a filling or 2.
maybe deep root planing? that usually works for me.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I am t3h p1ster fr0st
Maybe it's because of it's name. We already have enough people who fear they may get bitten by their computer. If you were one, would you buy it teeth?
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
Long live the vikings
I'm just a caveman programmer. I don't understand your strange, "modern" ways of thinking.
Many cars have yet to get accompanied with Bluetooth yet. Once we see some more activity, I'm almost certain that people will start using it more and more... Just my 2 centrs
first post? w00!
aaaand...whee!
How about Red Teeth? Or a low-powered, secured 802.11b? Then again, I am seeing more and more pBT products i.e. cell phones and PDAs anbd GPS.
I don't think it's as much dead as it is just late to the party.... seems we are finally getting the products we were promised: mice, phones, headsets, PDA's, just like 2-3 years later than we thought.
i just buy an ipaq with bluetooth!!
Bluetooth is quite useful for hands free cell phone kits, particularly now that using a mobile phone in cars in banned in the UK.
I really hope it's not dead, because I just bought a wireless Bluetooth keyboard for my laptop, and a USB Bluetooth dongle to go with it.
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
Bluetooth shall live on. I use it frequently, and its very convenient. Who couldnt love it?
The problem was that the chipsets to support Bluetooth were too expensive. If it's not cheap enough, no one will support it, and thus it won't get any cheaper. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Also, times that I had to use Bluetooth for research products, the thing never worked right. Anything between different vendors was a joke.
It amazes me how bad technically oriented people are at marketing. What's next, Redfoot?
Ah, they were saying the same thing about USB when it was first starting to take hold in the market.
If its dead, what is going to replace it?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
A year ago, an owner of a local computer store here picked up about 5,000 units of Toshiba Bluetooth client connectivity cards at almost $2.00 a piece. He was amazed at this price and of course jumped on it.
Before his company closed, I think he was only able to sell about 20 units over a 1 year period.
Personally, I think Toshiba has known for a while Blue Tooth tanked and was trying to cut their losses.
IEEE 802.11 has taken over! It is everywhere now. even my microwave oven is IEEE 802.11 enabled.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Come on people, electricity took 50 years to become commonplace. This is technology, not pet rocks.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Bluetooth was quite a success...compared to ISDN.
I still see some bluetooth stuff sittin around i think they still got some hope.
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
Apple has just started to get interested, so I don't think it's dead yet. If Apple comes up with a killer app for it (which they might now that they've started looking), the rest of the industry will follow.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
just wait longer
I'd like to see bluetooth embraced but until bluetooth keyboards cost more than wireless keyboards that come with a reciever I doubt this will happen. I think bluetooth will happen just as USB has happened: At first its a fancy connector only the latest and greatest use. People start getting computers that support it by default. Now its a connector for everything.
lp! Yeah!
You know, I don't thing I have ever actually seen a bluetooth device other than on a web page or two. How many of you have?
I personally use a bluetooth enabled phone, bluez kernel bluetooth drivers, and a bluetooth headset all nicely together.
This lets me connect to the internet with my phone and I can use the bluetooth headset to talk on the phone hands free and wire free.
I think that this makes it a very usable technology.
If bluetooth is dead, then why are so many people working so fast to support it so well in Linux?
No, wait, the other thing - tedious.
... if the devices that came out to use it had been cheap enough to catch on. But, with a mouse for laptop users coming in at $60, one can see why it didn't catch on. I would have really appreciated to have wireless connectivity for my laptop peripherals, but due to the potential for losing the devices, I'm not going to shell out that much money for it. The wire itself helps with security; it keeps things attached.
If bluetooth had been more widely supplied stock on desktop computers, and in cameras, PDAs, and the like, it might have made a difference. Again, I'm not going to pay $50 for a 'bluetooth base station' for the one or two bluetooth devices that I can find if I can just use USB, even with the cable mess, and maybe only have to buy a cheap USB hub.
If everything had adopted it within a year, or had inexpensive optional upgrades for it, I don't think we'd be discussing it's abandonment now.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This just in: EETimes confirms, Bluetooth is dying!
ah, you know the rest.......
It just never really caught on in the United States.
Some widely-popular trends have a slow start at times. IMHO, it's just starting to pick up. I've begun to notice more and more Bluetooth-enabled devices in major retail stores, so I don't think it's leaving anytime soon.
Is so-and-so dead?
While the so-and-so technology promised a lot to deliver, the future of so-and-so is quite bleak. Frankly, with different-so-and-so on the horizon, it's hard to see how so-and-so will ever get any market share. [insert name] from [insert agency] says: "I expected so-and-so to rule the market in 2 years, and it's not there. Meanwhile, different-so-and-so is gaining".
Is so-and-so dying? What do readers think?
...Java. I've been saying the Java thing for years, and the Bluetooth thing for about 6-8 months. Neither lived up to the hype. Java got to be so popular b/c it rode the dotcom wave.
With 802.11x becoming so standard in everything from laptops to handhelds why would anyone want to use Bluetooth anymore? Bluetooth is slower and doesn't have any real benefit over 802.11x.
These pundits rear their heads every once in a while, I think they like hearing themselves typing.
And here I thought *BSD was dead, now Bluetooth is dead? Which is it?
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Its the bluetooth of death!
Yep. Dead. It was low-power, incompatible with longer-range tech, and overhyped. Why have point-to-point RF IrDA when you can have wireless Ethernet to already connected networks, including your machine?
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
If Bluetooth is dead, then why has Apple just come out with a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse based on bluetooth? The software for controlling MacOS from a bluetooth cellphone is neat, too. I seem to be hearing more about bluetooth every day.
Apple's iSync works beautifully with BlueTooth enabled devices such as my Sony T68i phone.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Bluetooth was never really alive. But, now it's really dead.
I find it quite useful for syncing my contacts on my cell phone with my mac at home. Isn't a technology dead when no one uses it any more? I still use it, and Apple still seems behind it, since they just released a new keyboard and mouse that use it (no one button jokes, those are getting old). I think reports about bluetooth being dead should be declared dead.
today is spelling optional day.
It might take a little while for the PC world to come onboard with the technology, yet, there are companies that have adopted Bluetooth early, and seem to be putting some weight behind it. Apple has recently added a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to their line of products, making my powerbook's bluetooth chipset actually useful. The mouse is very well designed for use by travellers, although someone here is sure to bitch about the number of buttons within minutes.
Next time that I'm ready to upgrade my palm, as they tend to meet unfortunate fates while I travel, I'll probably pick up a bluetooth palm so I can carry one less cable with me. The cell phone world also makes use of bluetooth now to avoid cables.
It's just the conventional PC world that is taking its sweet time adopting Bluetooth. Considering that the market for wireless keyboards and mice definately hasn't gone away for Logitech, there is still a niche for bluetooth. Now that the marketing hype is fading away, the useful devices are slowly becoming available.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
Just as this is announced PalmOne releases a new Tungsten T4 (bluetooth enabled) with a 2GHz 970 PowerPC Processor with a 21" display in a 3 inch body.
I guess Palm is just one of those companies that just doesn't know when to let something die
Place something witty here
I have a Nokia 3650 (great phone, btw) and the bluetooth is great for some things, but painful for others.
Finding a BT headset that would work with my phone was a royal PITA. It seems that Nokia has a funky handsfree profile that most headsets won't play nice with. The headsets pair just fine, but then won't do anything useful.
Jabra has upgraded the BT200 to be compatible, but some that are in stores are the old version and some are the new version.
I do love the ability to automagically sync my palm, my iPod and my 3650 (via bt) all at once from my G4.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Why are you posting someone's e-mail?
Is he a spammer?
I dont know about anyone else but I dont think it was ever alive and kicking, always sounding like an idea looking for a reason?
Eric Idle: "Bring out your dead, bring out your dead."
EETimes: "here I have one for you"
Bluetooth: "I'm not dead yet!"
EETimes"You will be soon."
Bluetooth:"I think I am getting better"
EETimes"No you aren't"
Bluetooth:"I think I will take a walk"
Eric Idle: "Sir, I dont think we can take him in this condition."
got biv?
It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying, that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The loss of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.
Fact: *BSD is dying
to be realistic, for something to be dead in a technology world, something else has to kill it.
what's killed bluetooth? bluetooth killed the IR port, but i don't think that anything has come around to kill bluetooth.
802.11 isn't really for the same applications. for simple, small, easy to use devices bluetooth is top notch. mice, keyboards, phones, small file sharing etc it's wonderful.
it might not have taken off and be everywhere, but it's around, it's used, and there's nothing else widely available that works along the same lines.
who knows though, maybe something else will come along and bumb off bluetooth, but until then, it's not dead. on life support, maybe.
One of the problems with bluetooth is that it's so complicated to implement. If you download the spec it's massive, just looking at the contents gives you a headache. This complexity also makes it expensive.
Bluetooth is just recently making it's way into devices that the consumer can use. Finally we get bluetooth headsets and cell phones, keyboards, mice, etc. Apple has just released their new keyboard and mouse and Microsoft and Logitech have theirs. This is the same thing that happened with USB. PC's had USB several years before Apple implemented it on the iMac. After the iMac, we saw an explosion of USB devices and that was that. I think we'll see the same thing with Bluetooth.
Please explain how Bluetooth is dead when:
For a 'dead' technology, Bluetooth certainly has a lot going for it. Everything I've read says it's hit/hitting critical mass, not dying...and this seems more like hysterical "the world's ending tomorrow!" bull to me than anything else. Maybe the author has an interest in one of the other competing technologies, none of which I can even name, because they're not even a tenth as popular as Bluetooth?
Please help metamoderate.
read any story about last night's Chicago Cubs game. I suggest starting at googlenews.
Because their demise was never confirmed by Netcraft, I'm still wearing parachute pants with jelly shoes.
I think the thing to keep in mind that WPANs aren't dead, but who knows what the future of Bluetooth will be. WPANs are sweet, though. I've got Bluetooth in my phone, PDA, and Laptop. I can use the phone to access the Internet, sync everything wirelessly, and share information. It's pretty cool.
I've seen the news for a while that 802.11 is killing Bluetooth. I just don't get it - 802.11 is great, but when I'm out somewhere with no WAP in site I can use bluetooth to access the net through my phone just fine. Untill you've got universal wireless ethernet everywhere (and hell, we don't have wireless service everywhere for phones) then to me it's still useful.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Someone should get those two together. I think you get a discount when purchasing two burial plots and headstones.
Bluetooth is not dead, BSD is dead. Sorry - just had to. :-P
Others have already pointed it out - but I'll say it again here - Bluetooth isn't dead. It's just taking a while longer to get popular than was predicted (by some) or perhaps touted in the media.
:)
The thing to remember is that this ALWAYS happens. I can't believe Slashdotters have forgotten already what happened with USB. For YEARS, USB was available on PCs and was touted as the next big thing... next year will be the year of USB etc etc etc. But it didn't take off for quite a while - and some were certainly predicting its early demise. Yet here we are now, and everything uses USB and we can't imagine life without it.
The same process is happening with Bluetooth. More and more vendors are adding support... at some point it will reach critical mass and everyone will be using it. Have some patience before declaring it dead.
Not sure why the latest round of Tungsten handhelds ALL don't have it. It seems like it should be standard on all but the cheapest models. 802.11b is a waste of time on a handheld, IMHO. That functionality is better served over bluetooth.
I got the IBM X31 with bluetooth, Ericsson R520m with bluetooth, and the Sony Clie TG-50 with bluetooth and they all talk together extremely well. Dialing your phone directly from your Palm address book has now become essential and wireless hotsync a life saver (although you still have to put it in the cradle for charging, so you sync via USB at that time as well)....
I don't think it cam be beat right now. I hope all my devices hold out for at least another year....
-m
http://www.invisik.com
I think bluetooth is the greatest, most of my friends have at least a bluetooth cellphone and many also use a bluetooth PDA,
My phone automaticly syncs to my pc when I sit at my desk and I beam contacts and photos from my sonyericsson T610 to other people all the time
for me bluetooth is the new killer app that made me get a 2.5G cell phone
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Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
yup, i have a t68i as well and bluetooth is perfect for what i do with it, mainly syncing my address book and sending SMS messages. and although i don't do this, i know people who do use bluetooth mice with their powerbooks, which saves them the dongle. pretty fly, just take out the mouse, turn it on and you're good.
Parent is argumentative, provided real data.
Original posting, should be modded Insightful.
The author says the application stack was the best part, but the PHY was bad. I say exactly the opposite. The 2.4GHz phy work that was done was actually quite good for a personal area network. It's deployable anywhere in the world (2.4GHz is a worldwide ISM band) and low power. However, the application stack got so big that the processing power required killed the node cost. This was supposed to be less than $5US per node, but ended up over $10US.
Anyway, it's pretty much dead. Too big for it's britches. Let's learn from this and keep those beautiful RF front ends that came out of the bluetooth experiment.
Most of the medium to high-end phones sold now have Bluetooth capabilities. Even if this isn't used for more than connecting to a hands-free device, it's still a use of Bluetooth. The UK, for example, is about to introduce a law giving penalties to drivers caught using mobiles phone handsets themselves. The fines do not apply to certain hands-free devices, so an increase in Bluetooth car kits is foreseen.
Back to the computing front, and we're on to synchronisation. I understand a number of people are having hassle on the PC, however I imagine that will be fixced at some point. On the Mac bluetooth synchronisation is completely seamless - it is so totally transparent that I don't even think about it. Then there's file transfer - I use bluetooth to transfer photos and video clips off the phone (3650) to my laptop, and use bluetooth to transfer files back onto the phone (normally C64 games for use in an emulator).
The guy who wrote the article needs to get out more.
, Cheers,
Ian
Was bluetooth ever alive? Its more of an ideal or a dream.
http://threetechguys.info Come, discuss Technology. Got a technology question? Come ask!
but then it got up and stumbled around.
... and its the best way my phones (nokia) will talk to my pc. It's also fast for this purpose...
people have spent too much time talking and not enough doing, in the mean time WiFi has overtaken them to become the wireless standard of choice
cellphones look out because you're next
My Sony TG60 connects with my Ericsson 68i over bluetooth.
I can then SSH into any of my servers anywhere with the little keyboard on the TG60.
No fucking way I'm giving that up - it's really nice and usefull.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
But the same question was asked here not too long ago.
hasn't apple been dead, or dying, since the early 1980's?
jk
I have blog like everyone else
It can't be quite that dead yet. Heck, I'm posting off my Zaurus using BT to my T68i now. Works like a champ.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Because here in Europe people use Bluetooth all the time. I use it to connect my laptop to my mobile phone to dial up when on the move and to send business cards to other mobile phones (much less fiddly than infrared). My Mac friends use their Bluetooth phones to control their Macs (iTunes, Powerpoint clicker, even to lock the screen when they (ie their phone) moves out of Bluetooth range). When DWY becomes illegal in England in December I plan on buying a Bluetooth headset: no fiddly wires, the phone can be in my briefcase when I answer a call. So no sign of Bluetooth death here.
The marketing effort was most certainly derailed by early engineering promises that didn't even come close. Remember them saying 100mbps at 100m? Ridiculous promises, and a LONG time before they had anything at all to show.
Simple. Nobody's actually using it, and the public doesn't even know what it is.
I think the real point of the article was that Bluetooth was hyped up to be the next great thing 3 years ago. Chips were suppose to be under $5.00 and it was the next best thing since sliced bread. 3 years later we are just starting to see Bluetooth devices and those devices are still relativly expensive compared to just useing a cable.
Bluetooth marketing had people believing that every electronic device produced today would have a bluetooth chip in it. Right now we aren't even close to that point.
I use 802.11b type devices and not Bluetooth type ones, but in all honesty their are a lot of people and companies (Apple Computers comes to mind) who use Bluetooth in their systems and PDA's. Of course they (at least Apple I know for sure) do use 802.11b (Airport) devices as well.
I think Bluetooth is also looked at as sort of an underdog competitor with 802.11b(g)(a) wireless standards and therefore a lot of people flock to it.
Of course weather or not Bluetooth exists or doesn't makes no difference to me because it's not a technology I utilize or have any interest in.
Ave Molech Setting
Bluetooth is just getting started. It's finally possible to buy $20-$30 adapters for PCs, it's going into cars now, keyboards and mice are finally coming out with it: the technology is primed to explode in use!
It's taken so long to get going beacause chip prices were originally too high to enable use in low cost devices such as those mentioned above, but now economies of scale have finally kicked in, demand is picking up as the prices have fallen.
This is exactly why it will become ubiquitous- any competition technology emerging right now has got the same steep "economies of scale curve" to work through before it picks up. Other technology might be on the market, or nearly on the market, but it's years from being on the tongue of Joe Consumer.
PS: Take USB- that took well over 5 years to get going properly, and now there's no stopping it.
I hate pointing my stuff at my other stuff if I want to transfer some stuff. I don't gotta point nothin' at nothin' if I use Bluetooth. For that reason alone, I love it and will continue to seek it out on the stuff I buy.
Don't even get me started about cables either... not even worth the keystrokes. Plain proof the guy who wrote this is an idiot is this line:
"And what's wrong with a wired headset, which is cheaper, better-sounding, lighter and more reliable-and without the silly blinking LED? Gratuitous Bluetooth? You bet."
All the people who like wires raise your hands! I thought not.
TW
Troubles with bluetooth was predicted in November 1,2000
CARLSBAD, CA -- When a moderator at Red Herring's NDA conference on Monday asked an audience of entrepreneurs, VCs, and vendors what business models will come out of the Bluetooth short-range wireless protocol, the room fell silent.
Finally, an undaunted Bluetooth entrepreneur leapt to break the silence. But the long pause when a roomful of 50 supposedly forward-thinking technologists and investors was struck silent indicates that Bluetooth has a long way to go.
"I get a real sense today that Bluetooth is a technology in search of an application," proclaimed one attendee, clearly annoyed that no one in the room could cite any research indicating a real market opportunity for Bluetooth-enabled devices and software applications.
Bluetooth is a technology standard that allows for a wireless local area network (LAN) that proponents say will rid corporate campuses, hotels, and airports of wires now needed to accommodate mobile workers. It's a step up from infrared technology, which requires devices to be in the line of sight of a network base station or another infrared-enabled device to establish a connection and relay data. Bluetooth systems talk to each other via a 2.4 GHz radio embedded on a chip.
The Bluetooth protocol was formed in 1998 by several computer and handheld device companies that would benefit from the technology, including IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and cell phone makers Nokia and Ericsson . The Bluetooth Special Interest Group numbers more than 2,000 members.
THEY'VE GOT SPUNK
Attendees of the panel discussion -- "Bluetooth: Has a new industry been created?" -- were a feisty, skeptical bunch. They put panelist Skip Bryan, Ericsson's director of technology market development, on the spot by wondering out loud, in so many words, why they should care about Bluetooth-connected products if no one knows whether businesses and consumers want them.
Mr. Bryan tried to placate the audience.
"This is such a big marketplace, it's hard to put your finger on where it's going to explode," he said. "We're going to see things happen that we've only seen in science fiction movies."
That comment may not have been the best thing to say to a savvy audience that has seen its share of over-hyped technologies and products -- from the Apple's Newton to the pen computing disaster to Oracle's network computer. (A few might even have been thinking about Scout Electromedia, which sold a reported 3,000 Palm-like devices to consumers before it shut its doors last week, making the $100 devices worthless.)
It wasn't lost on the audience that Bluetooth proponents once promised that products would hit the market in mid-1999. And despite the long list of heavy hitters behind Bluetooth, important players such as Palm aren't on the bandwagon. Palm ran a demo of a Bluetooth device at the CeBIT trade show in February, but the company hasn't committed to producing a Bluetooth-imbedded Palm in 2001, a company spokeswoman said. Palm plans to ship a Bluetooth snap-on module "sometime next year," she added.
Despite the lack of consumer research, companies in the device-making business are confident there will be a market for Bluetooth devices and are preparing to put them on store shelves.
A few Bluetooth-enabled devices are scheduled to enter the market before year's end. Infospace.com , an infrastructure services company, and Xircom , a mobile network access provider, joined to develop a Bluetooth-enabled credit-card-size personal digital assistant (PDA) that is scheduled to ship in November. Ericsson is set to ship Bluetooth-enabled cellular phones to retailers in the first quarter of next year.
"Bluetooth is going to be the de facto protocol for any kind of personal internetworking products," said Miten Mehta, business development vice president at Infospace, referring to PDAs, PCs, laptops, and cell phones.
FINALLY, SOME NUMBERS
Some research firms are projecting fast sales
Fortunately, you have people like me around to point this all out to you. :-)
Babar
because Bluetooth
cars would be a killer app
Blue Tooth works fantastic between my wireless ear piece and cell phone. How difficult would it be to implement 802.11 into cell phones?
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
Number of button?
paintball
That bacon sure does shizzle! http://yofoshizzle.com
Right now Bluetooth can exist because it has many, very specialized profiles that allow building relatively simple devices. IP based technologies like WLAN need more expensive controllers. A few euros/dollars matter for devices like keyboard and headsets, and IP-based hardware would be too expensive.
But in a few years the price difference will be neglegible, and then Bluetooth will go away, because TCP/IP is better known and less complex. Bluetooth is not alone, USB and Firewire will also disappear (or at least their protocols, a IP-based solution may use the same hardware).
I'm feeling betta! I think I'll go for a walk... THUMP!
I hated the idea of bluetooth when I first heard about it. Why would anyone want short communications with anything? Then it started coming out and I started messing with it.
Bluetooth is cool technology. I have it linked up with my Powerbook so I can control iTunes and my screen saver based on my (actually my phone's, but it's in my pocket) proximity to the laptop.
Incoming calls mute my music and display the caller id on my laptop. No wires, no mess, and little noticeable additional power usage (my P800 has more than enough charge to make it through a standard 24-hour cycle).
Just because there's alot of FUD out there and propaganda that says Bluetooth sucks doesn't make it suck automatically. In additional to all that listed above, I can also sync it to my laptop's calendar and address book all without taking the phone out of my pocket.
I don't see why people automatically disown it upon mention. Maybe they love cradles so much? I don't know. It reminds me of how people react when I say Apples are now cool. It's not their fault they don't know the advantages of the technology, they just don't know any better I guess.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
But on wireless headsets for mobile phones Bluetooth is alive and kicking. Nokia, Sony Ericson, Samsung, Siemens, Motorola, Plantronics and Nextlink all delivers headsets based on Bluetooth.
Not very popular in US yet, but as these items shrink in size and price they will increase their popularity. A little bird whispered in my ear that these gadgets are selling pretty well in Scandinavia, Japan, and South Korea.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
It's been a long time coming, but I think that Bluetooth is now just starting to live. Like any new technology, the problem is that people won't buy in until enough stuff supports it. Calling Bluetooth dead is like calling USB dead 4 years ago.
Right now, I will never buy another cell phone that doesn't support bluetooth. I just got a 15" G4 PowerBook with integrated bluetooth, and I know that it will Just Work(tm) with any of the bluetooth phones that I've used (Ericsson T68, SonyEricsson P800.) I can sync my phone, my palm (Tungsten T), and use the phone for dialup, all without having to take the phone out of my pocket or attach a special dongle.
Similarly, I have an assortment of wireless headsets that I can use, that won't require extra dongles. And the Apple Bluetooth keyboard and mouse will just work without dongles like the Logitech devices require.
I think Bluetooth is just starting to reach critical mass. They're positioning it to be the "wireless USB", and just now they're finally starting to get there.
I want a gameboy advance that uses this to play multiplayer games without cables :) i guess the N-Gage has it, but doesnt work well? i think it would be a cool idea, but who knows... if it doesn't work it doesn't work...
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
Bluetooth is dead -- or rather stillborn -- only in the United States.
/grr
And it is all Qualcomm's fault.
It's been years -- and years -- since folks overseas and using GSM phones have been able to use bluetooth on a daily basis. Since the US has stuck mostly with CDMA cellular networks (hey, I use Verizon myself, the coverage can't be beat) that means they've stuck with Qualcomm chips.
Every six months a rumor comes around that FINALLY Qualcomm is going to release a CDMA chipset with bluetooth support, and every six months it turns out to be a pipe dream.
I would love to give a nice kick in the nuts to Qualcomm's entire management team. And to the heads of Verizon and Sprint for not demanding 2 years ago that Qualcomm get off their asses and integrate this tech.
Everybody spent so much time and money in the last few years on 2.5/3G networks that are completely unprofitable because it never occurred to them that surfing the web from your PHONE was going to suck. But if I could use my computer or even Palm/PPC without needing a custom $60 cable, it might be useful!
And now the cell companies get to watch as 802.11 starts to eat away at their potential data business, when we wouldn't have NEEDED 802.11 hotspots on every block if our damn phones worked the way they were supposed to 3 years ago!
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
There will be some more interesting BT devices coming out in the next year. I'm working on some of them.
However, some of the original applications envisioned for BT haven't panned out. Boo hoo.
It's a handy protocol for some types of short-range wireless, where something like 802.11 would be too heavy-weight. There is definitely a niche for it.
And as far as 802.15.3a goes... I personally witnessed the flame fest on the IEEE mailing list, I really don't think it was travel restrictions that prevented the group from coming to a consensus. Ultra-wide band in general shows a lot of promise, but it'll be a couple years before we've got stable products available to consumers.
Bluetooth seems to be pretty ubiquitous on mobile phones here in the UK. It's trickled down from the high-end into mid-range and even cheap phones.
Because of frequent upgrades and good deals from networks, many many people have pretty advanced phones with features such as Bluetooth.
My old SonyEricsson T68i (and now my new T610) support BT. I've got iSync set up on my Mac to synchronise all contacts and calendar data between the address book, phones and iPod. I never have to consciously perform the synchronisation. Whenever I get to my front door, the devices are already talking to eachother and updating my data.
It's also an excellent way to exchange data between these low-power devices without resorting to transmitting over the serivce-provider's network. I can exchange maps, sounds, contacts or events with speeds and convenience that IR can't match.
I've yet to find a place in the UK where I don't get GPRS coverage, and Bluetooth is the perfect way of using GPRS access on a laptop or PDA. In fact, when it comes to PDA's, it often works out cheaper to couple it with a Bluetooth phone than it does buying the proprietary jackets/expansion kits required to give them direct GPRS/GSM support.
802.11 hot spots are great if you're not actually travelling, and happen to be at a station/coffee shop/library/business where there's a base station or three. The mobile network+bluetooth is handy everywhere.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
...BSD that's dying.
whats going on ? is something broken with the moderation or has the signal to noise ratio of comments over the past few days decreased dramatically ?
somepeople here are paying for this, you have my condolences
Get it straight.
Eric Idle : Bring out your dead!
EETimes : Here's one -- nine pence.
Bluetooth : I'm not dead!
Eric Idle : What?
EETimes : Nothing -- here's your nine pence.
Bluetooth : I'm not dead!
Eric Idle : Here -- he says he's not dead!
EETimes : Yes, he is.
Bluetooth : I'm not!
Eric Idle : He isn't.
EETimes : Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Bluetooth : I'm getting better!
EETimes : No, you're not -- you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Eric Idle : Oh, I can't take him like that -- it's against regulations.
Bluetooth : I don't want to go in the cart!
EETimes : Oh, don't be such a baby.
Eric Idle : I can't take him...
Bluetooth : I feel fine!
EETimes : Oh, do us a favor...
Eric Idle : I can't.
EETimes : Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
Eric Idle : Naaah, I got to go on to Robinson's -- they've lost nine today.
EETimes : Well, when is your next round?
Eric Idle : Thursday.
Bluetooth : I think I'll go for a walk.
EETimes : You're not fooling anyone y'know. Look, isn't there something you can do?
Bluetooth : I feel happy... I feel happy.
[whop]
EETimes : Ah, thanks very much.
Eric Idle : Not at all. See you on Thursday.
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
NT
... start of WWW III ?
I'm typing this over a bluetooth enabled keyboard, to my bluetooth enabled laptop. And you know, I just cannot figure out how my phone and laptop keep that darned address book synchronized. It really has me puzzled. Whatever it is is sure is useful.
Hmm. let me wiggle over to check the links here, using my mouse.
Let's not even talk about a headset or two.
Definately dead. Yup.
Whatever.
All the big manufacturers have been pushing it, but no matter how much hype: it will never come alive. The only cool bluetooth thing I've seen was toshibas laptop with wireless detatchable keyboard. That was cool. The remotes for your computer? those are stupid
"The most looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict"
Although, I did try sending a file to my cell phone today over both IR and Bluetooth. Suprisingly, it was faster over IR. I believe however, that most of these devices don't utilize the full speed allowed in the standard.
At any rate, IR is just plain annoying. I bumped the phone, and OOOOPS, that's the end of my file transfer. Or, sitting in a meeting somebody elses laptop gets a perfect line of sight for once ever and my computer starts making stupid sounds and me 8|
It's not going to make "a dent in the universe", as Steve Jobs would put it, and it's not going to kill 802.11 or start another bubble or anything revolutionary like that, but it's here to stay. Adding Bluetooth to an existing product or upcoming design is routine now; it's built into all new Macs and a lot of PCs. One of these days it will just be everywhere and people will use it without a second though and demand it as a standard feature. Bluetooth will just end up like Firewire: There's no massive marketing campaign for it (any more), but it's widely used and it works well at what it does.
Just from seeing it in action, Internet access through Bluetooth phones is pretty damn cool, and will be until 802.11 hotspots are a LOT more common than they are now.
... in the USA. Here in Europe it's doing just fine. The USA is always behind when it comes to tech. (Yes I work in the telecom industry)
it's in my head
I would say it is dead. It has been out for a long long time now, and I have never personally seen a need to own a blue tooth enabled device. What few things are available supporting it are obscenely expensive ($60 for a cell phone bluetooth headset? just to avoid a wire?)
However, There are some driving forces behind it still. Like the screenshots for Longhorn that show Windows, a PDA, an MP3 player, and a digital camera all communicating wirelessly.
By the way, anyone notice that as of this comment there are roughly 140 comments already, and none were moderated above 2? weird.
no comment
Unless Microsoft adds mainstream Bluetooth support or empowers another developer to do this, it may never be fully accepted.
Bluetooth is a breeze on the Mac, and it's about as painless as 802.11b for Linux, but those two markets simply aren't enough to support the kind of varied peripheral market that's needed for this to blossom.
(well, never was alive, for me :)
- Hubert
Oh look, must be a slow news day, as yet another journalist reaches for a story.
...
Let's see, the list of Previous Things Declared Dead by a Bored Journalist are:
UNIX
Linux
VMS
SCSI
APPLE
FTP
telnet
Now we can add Bluetooth. Gee, thanks.
Anything is possible given time and money.
Bluetooth had a lot of intial hype, which set the consumer and manufacturer expectations too high. The standards group went way overboard and made a very complex spec, and the final silicon was far more expensive and power hungry than initially promised. Furthermore, the complex spec is a PITA to implement, and even though the spec is huge, there's lots of wiggle room that makes it difficult for different manufacturers to develop compatible products.
Having said that, Bluetooth is improving and seeing wider adoption. This is partly because there's no concrete competiton right now; all the alternatives (low-power 802.11, UWB, etc.) haven't hit silicon yet, and there's still some consumer demand and marketing advantage to having Bluetooth-enabled products. Manufacturers are learning the ins and outs of Bluetooth development, and best practices are being passed around where they can help clarify the spec.
Bluetooth is still vulnerable, though, to the newly emerging alternatives. If any of them come out of the gate with persuasive advantages and good manufacturer adoption, Bluetooth will become a dying technology. Since that hasn't happened yet, I believe Craig Mathias (the article's author) is jumping the gun a bit.
Now that the technology is actually ironed out, that people are starting to understand what the technology is for, and products are actually becoming affordable the sky is falling. These are probably the same people who blew sunshine up any available orifice when slashdotters were all early-adopting.
Ross Winn "not just another ugly face..."
Does this have something to do with %pissant_local_sporting_event_that_I_vaguely_remem ber_some_fat_drunk_blowhard_in_a_pub_going_on_and_ on_about% ?
A large percentage of new mobile phones from the major manufacturers are all equipped with Bluetooth, and combined with GPRS, it's an ideal way to connect your laptop to the internet when you're on the move.
It allows my calendar on my Mac to synchronise with the calendar on my organiser, it lets me send files to and from my office PC without the need for a network, and it's even used for wireless keyboards, mice, and audio headsets.
It's the wireless equivalent of USB, and it works just fine thank you.
What I keep hearing is how Bluetooth is not needed because WiFi is here. Why do we need another wireless protocol?
Until 802.11 comes out with a LOW POWER small footprint (chip size) method of creating a PAN (Personal Area Network) without the headache of DHCP and routing there is a hole in the market.
Maybe bluetooth just needs to be renamed EatherUSB, PANEther. After all, CSMA/CD is dying (GigE anyone), but the name of Ethernet lives on and on and on...
I guess that when it comes to name changes, Blueballs might work. "The Personal Area Network your devices require without the radiation release your personals don't."
EE Times should mod his article down as flambait.
I would be willing to bet just about anything that IF Bluetooth had come first and 802.11/WiFi second, he would be asking, "So, IEEE, why the heck can't you design a modulation scheme that is not so open to gratuitous interference from remote devices? I mean, common, the Bluetooth guys solved this problem!"
what a dolt.
Cheers,
Ken
The most suitable uses I saw for bluetooth were on the watchpad, which was announced around this time a couple of years ago. If only IBM knew what I would do for one of those...
.. and look forward to using it in the future as well.
you may have 'better' alternatives but bluetooth is here NOW, it WORKS and is USEFUL. so no, it's not dead.
it's just dead damn easy to write about subjects that 'will most certainly' fail, and make up some reasons to back it up. nobody will come back saying "haa haa" even if they don't suddenly die(sun is dying, apple is dying bsd is dying, linux is dying windows is dying, computer industry is dying, car industry is dying, fsp games are dying, p2p is dying, mp3 is dying, riaa is dying).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Considering there are a number of handy BlueTooth devices on the market, and there seems to be new things supporting it on a regular basis, I'd say that it's doing okay.
That is, unless you are one of those people who rely on the number of buzzwords in the press to determine how well a particular technology is doing.
It was over-hyped.. But so was 802.11B, nVidia, etc. But what wasn't hyped to death a couple of years ago?
As far as marketing departments were concerned (1998), by now we would be magically floating around in our 'IT' vehicles acting like happy hippies holding hands while listening to Daft Punk all day on our iPods and wearing neon purple, inflatable shirts. FPS games so real, you can't tell it's CGI! Not a worry in the world, technology is here to save us! Invest today for a brighter tomorrow! Praise Jebus, Praise Slashdot. Zion awaits!
Does he use also terms like "combustion horse and buggy" and "electronic slide rule"?
No
Ah, they were saying the same thing about USB when it was first starting to take hold in the market.
You mean, like when Apple threw their wholehearted support behind it by putting it in their machines and encouraging its use?
Funny how everyone ignored it for 2 years when it was on all those PC motherboards, but lo and behold, also-ran Apple climbs on board with support and all of a sudden USB peripherals can't be cranked out quickly enough.
Same thing with Bluetooth. It was just a buzzwordish name being tossed around, and then Apple hatched iSync, and then Salling Clicker came out-- and now I think it's safe to say that most people who have Bluetooth cell phones are Mac users.
In another crippling bombshell, Netcraft now has confirmed Blue Tooth is dead.
With a given percentage of 0% Netservers on the Web running on Bluetooth and a userbase of 0% running there boxes on with the Bluetooth operating system, it is easy to come to the conclusion Bluetooth is dead.
It follows otzher prominent deaths like the BSD operating system and 3 1/2 inch floppy disks.
Why not, race cars do :)
http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=264
Anybody who thinks that 802.11 is an alternative to Bluetooth doesn't know what they are talking about. 802.11 is power hungry, it is a pain to configure, it requires a complete TCP/IP stack, and it requires separate 802.1x services in order to be acceptably secure. Right now, there is no shipping standard that is even close to being an alternative to Bluetooth.
Bluetooth, in contrast, is pretty miserly with power, it's trivial to configure, even securely, it can be attached to anything with a serial line (even a microcontroller), and its crypto seems to be reasonably secure all by itself. Furthermore, Bluetooth comes in three range varieties, including a very short-range mode, which makes it a great choice for lots of different applications.
Yeah, the Bluetooth folks screwed up big time, but they have learned their lesson and are getting their act together. Any new standard is likely going to make lots of mistakes as well, so it won't be ready for several years either. By the time they are finally ready, Bluetooth will be very cheap, very widely used, and probably have a high-speed version as well.
The only thing that might make a dent in Bluetooth is wireless USB--provided the wireless USB folks get everything right the first time. Wireless USB is an attractive proposition because it just builds on USB. But even it would only occupy a niche market.
For PAN applications like connecting cell phones, organizers, headsets, and desktop machines on-the-fly, there is nothing like Bluetooth out there or even on the horizon.
When Mathias says "now is the time to move on", he has failed to answer the question "to what". None of the systems he talks about are alternatives to Bluetooth.
....am i suppose to have a wireless link from my phone to my headset?
Bluetooth has been slow to take off, but the market is there give it time it will work. Support is getting stronger...
... to pronounce it dead when I think just about everyone here would agree it was never even close to alive? Does anyone use bluetooth?? Did anyone ever use it?
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
How long did USB take to pick up? How long did you have those useless connectors on your system, with nothing to plug into them?
802.11 is a poor substitue for Bluetooth, because of its much higher power requirements. Bluetooth was designed for what it does: provide low speed, low power, peripheral linking.
Just because the author doesn't see a use for wireless gizmos doesn't mean they aren't going to pick up. I like the idea of a standard protocol that can allow my phone to talk to my PDA, to my computer, allow presence detection by the environment to control automated devices, etc. The sues of Bluetooth are many, and if the author doesn't see it, he's missing the train.
Give it another year, maybe two. Then you'll see Bluetooth with its foot in the door and flexing its muscle. We won't see its value until then.
XeoMage
I remember the big push for the Bluetooth standard years ago, and then nothing really coming out. Now I have a 17" PowerBook with Bluetooth built-in. I picked up the MS Bluetooth mouse. I really like my wireless mouse. Before you would have to plug in a dongle, and may as well just have a wired mouse that doesn't use batteries. Additionally I have Bluetooth in my mobile phone. I connect to the internet when I am out and about thru GPRS on my mobile. Its really nice to be able to just leave it in my pocket, no wires.
My boss has a Tungsten T and had problems with his cradle and syncing on his mac, so he just syncs using Bluetooth (granted it is slower, but on the plus side he can do it away from his desk). I'm planning on picking up a Palm PDA with Bluetooth soon, not for syncing, but cause I don't want to have a billion contacts in my mobile phone, but with Bluetooth Palm's you can 'dial' from the address book. Very handy.
Just as other people have said, I think that now that Apple is really embracing Bluetooth that we aren't going to see it die anymore than BSD, or Apple are dying.
Just bought my M$ Bluetooth mouse for my iBook yesterday. Its not too bad, and this is coming from a M$ hater.
I like how Apple puts it. Its to USB/Firewire as 802.11x is to 10/100/1000 mbit ethernet.
forget it.
http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Cli cker/
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/salling.html
= 9J =
You must be new around here - when asking such a question/making such a claim, the proper format is:
Bluetooth is dead; long live bluetooth!
Just FYI.
Any spoon would be too big.
802.11 uses too much power to be useful in the niche bluetooth is getting (cameras, PDAs, and especially cellphones). I doubt Bluetooth will be going away anytime soon.
Look how long it took USB to become what it is today, give Bluetooth a chance. Us geeks use it and like it, and within another year or so it will be on most PDA's, cell phones, and computers so the average consumer will be using it too.
the same was said about USB. It took years for products to reach market, and years more until things became mainstream. Why? The cost far outweighed the convenience, and software support was sketchy. This mirrors bluetooth--it is definitely a better technology, but it is not fully supported by commodity hardware and software (with Apple leading the way, though) and it is dang expensive! I would have loved a lushious SonyEricsson phone with bluetooth and a headset, but it's $300. Within the reach of some, but not enough to make the market big enough to classify as "taking off."
Seems no one is really taking the subject seriously here in Slashdot, meaning it's a moot point or it's probably not true.
In tech wars (ie. VHS vs. Beta; Microsoft vs. Apple) there's a winner and loser, but the main goal is to take advantage of a new, large, or profit friendly market.
Yes, bluetooth is a new market product, but that market is so small now that I think the author is confusing the death of bluetooth with the over-rating of a short-distance data transfer protocol/hardware market.
That is to say, is it the bluetooth standard that is "dying" or is it the fact that the market it occupies is not as BIG as people said it would be?!? Or, is the market dying all-together? Do we have to see bluetooth on every street corner before we call it "alive"?
I think it's a niche market, useful, and meant to grow. But, it's NOT going to make millions of dollars like other tech markets, and in that regard, it's probably misconstrued as lying there in death throws. Not every printer, PDA, phone, mouse, keyboard, microscope, answering machine, coffee maker, or refridgerator needs to be Bluetooth enabled, and certainly not right away.
Maybe the author should have discussed the market that bluetooth occupies, and not the product itself. Short distance communication between devices isn't exactly going to revolutionize the world, it's certainly a slow-growth market, and though it's useful, it's not going to be blowing any skirts up for a while.
All of the companies listed above have gone so far as to include Bluetooth interfaces into their product lines. HP and Apple have notebooks but the real story in my opinion is the auto manufacturers. Audi/VW and BMW are both offering Bluetooth interfaces to their multi media platforms for their next generation of cars. I have a Parrot hands free kit in my car and it is a huge asset when driving. I don't have to take my phone out of my pocket to answer or make calls. Bluetooth is just a connection method. The real "Killer Apps" are just starting to come forward for the technology. I have even heard rumor that then next iPod will have a Bluetooth interface for controlling unit and displaying the ID tags. I think the author of this artical was missing the point. Bluetooth is not for large data packages or network connectivity it is for linking devices and creating personal networks. I use my iPAC through my T39m to connect to the Internet. I store my calendar on my T39m by sync'ing via Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a choice, just like many of you have already pointed out in your comparisons to USB. If you don't adopt the platform you can't realize the benefits.
Fact is that the Cubs SUCK!!! That's why they haven't been in the playoffs for 60 years. Since when did not getting in for 60 years make any team deserve a championship? If you aren't the best, you don't get in!
The Cubs have sucked for 60 years. THE CUBS STILL SUCK TO THIS DAY!!!
This guy does not deserve to be blamed for the pure unadulterated suckiness that is the Chicago Cubs!
I blinked and missed the whole thing.
Oh well, time to find some other way of connecting wirelessly....hmmm, wonder what this 802.11 thing is?
Zro . two
"I come from Canada...they say I'm slow....eh?"
It's the NLCS...I don't even like baseball, and I still watched the game.
So STFU and go back to your parents' basement you fat, friendless slob.
It really was a horrible marketing job... They didn't even know what they were trying to sell it as. Hell, I read a lot of crap about it, and I barely understood EXACTLY what it was. They were referring to it as a wireless protocol(true) sometimes and for other things it was just thrown in as an erroneous feature.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
Swedish sites are reporting that logitech feels bluetooth is stable enough and that they will start using it in their products...
Here's what I found on the logitech website:
September 17, 2003 Logitech Transforms the PC into a Wireless Hub for Bluetooth Devices
September 15, 2003 Logitech Brings the Power of Bluetooth to Its Popular Line Of Mobile Phone Headsets
You're an asshole.
This poor guy was trying to catch a ball that was in the stands, and you're promoting harassing him.
You would've done the same thing...Dick.
To me it's more of an infrared replacement, more handy than having devices in line of light.
Of course it was hyped up as being something that all your household appliances would communicate with, so I think it's a bit early to write it off yet.
How'd you like a baseball bat up your ass? I bet you'd really like that.
Baseball sucks but, you suck balls.
The author seems to believe that Bluetooth was supposed to be a competetor to 802.11a/b/g. He's just wrong. Bluetooth is/was/ever-shall-be about cable management for very small networks.
The typical computer still is a rat's nest of wires when you look at the back. Game consoles and cell phones have a similar problem. The whole point to Bluetooth is to replace the low-bandwidth cables with a limited-range, wireless solution. While it may not be all that useful for a monitor, it certainly can replace speakers/headsets, keyboards, mice, joysticks, PDA's, etc. Think about how nice it will be to only have three cables (power, monitor power, and VGA/DVI) involved.
If only Logitech would get off the pot and start shipping Bluetooth product, we would see some real deployment. MS has had an expensive Bluetooth keyboard/mouse setup for months.
Bluetooth consumes considerably less power than 802.11. So unless the only physical exercise you get for the day is replacing batteries in your various wireless gadgets I would recommend sticking with Bluetooth and only use 802.11 were speed is important.
Mods, come on, mod this thing into oblivion, no one deserves their information posted on the internet like this. The ump called no interference and regardless, I doubt it made the difference in the Cubs losing.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
As long as 802.11b needes that much battery power, bluetooth is an interesting application for mobile devices. What is an handheld use, when you have internet but empty batteries?
I have a bluetooth headset for my Cell.. It's kind of unique in the US, but it sure makes driving with the phone nice.
I just leave my phone in my laptop bag, and put on the headset, use the voice rec. to dial.
We follow the cart through a wretched, impoverished plague-ridden village. A few starved mongrels run about in the mud scavenging. In the open doorway of one house perhaps we jug glimpse a pair of legs dangling from the ceiling. In another doorway an OLD WOMAN is beating a cat against a wall rather like one does with a mat. The cart passes round a dead donkey or cow in the mud. And a MAN tied to a cart is being hammered to death by four NUNS with huge mallets.
CART DRIVER - Bring out your dead!
There are legs stick out of windows and doors. Two MEN are fighting in the mud - covered from head to foot in it. Another MAN is on his hands in knees shovelling mud into his mouth. We just catch sight of a MAN falling into a well.
CART DRIVER - Bring out your dead!
LARGE MAN - Here's one!
CART DRIVER - Ninepence.
BODY - I'm not dead!
CART DRIVER - What?
LARGE MAN - Nothing... There's your ninepence.
BODY - I'm not dead!
CART DRIVER - 'Ere. He says he's not dead.
LARGE MAN - Yes he is.
BODY - I'm not!
CART DRIVER - He isn't.
LARGE MAN - He will be soon. He's very ill.
BODY - I'm getting better!
LARGE MAN - You're not. You'll be stone dead in a few minutes.
CART DRIVER - I can't take him like this. It's against regulations.
BODY - I don't want to go on the cart.
LARGE MAN - Don't be such a baby.
CART DRIVER - I can't take him.
BODY - I feel fine.
LARGE MAN - Do me a favour.
CART DRIVER - I can't.
LARGE MAN - Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes. He won't be long.
CART DRIVER - I promised I'd be at the Robinson's. They've lost nine today.
LARGE MAN - When's your next round?
CART DRIVER - Thursday.
BODY - I think I'll go for a walk.
LARGE MAN - You're not fooling anyone you know. (to CART DRIVER) Isn't there anything you could do?
BODY - (singing unrecognisably) I feel happy... I feel happy.
The CART DRIVER looks at the LARGE MAN for a moment. Then they both do a quick furtive look up and down the street. The CART DRIVER very swiftly brings up a club and hits the OLD MAN. (Out of shot but the singing stops after a loud bonk noise.)
LARGE MAN - (handing over the money at last) Thanks very much.
CART DRIVER - That's all right. See you on Thursday.
(Score: -1, Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong)
This couldn't be farther from the truth.
Bluetooth might very well be beaten by 802.11 for internet connectivity. Sure, but that's really not what Bluetooth is all about. Try putting 802.11 in your mobile phone and watch the battery drain away like CPU cycles in a Windows machine. Try putting 802.11 in your wireless mouse, C-Pen or a microphone?
The usage areas for 802.11 and Bluetooth only slightly overlap. They each have distinct advantages. Bluetooth is very cheap and consumes very little power. Those two advantages alone will keep it alive until something better comes along.
People talk about using their bluetooth phones to connect laptops and PDAs to the internet, but what kind of security is there? Last I heard, bluetooth relies on low power and short range for security. What's to stop someone from leeching off your wireless minutes in a crowded public place or sniffing the password you typed from the next office cubicle?
bluetooth, do I hear the masses groaning? v 2.0 would be "root canal." here's an excellent example of marketing on loan from crackheads.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
in America, but not in Europe. Because the first after reading this headline and deciding to skip this article was me going to Heise.de and finding:
- 00 0/
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/dz-15.10.03
"Logitechs Bluetooth-Schaltzentrale" (Logitech Bluetooth-CommandCenter).
Well, well...
te"I don't have bluetooth, what for?"ls
But Harald, well, 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-pyrate.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I do not think that word means what he thinks it means. In my eyes Bluetooth is anything but dead. In fact I see it as a booming technology.
Every model of Mac Apple sells save two (iBook and eMac) have Bluetooth as an option, the Powerbooks for example come with it by default. Anyone wanting Bluetooth can invest $30 and add the capability to their computer. Most new PC laptops come with Bluetooth at least as an add-in option. Bluetooth modules for PocketPC and Palm based handhelds aren't horribly expensive and some models even come with Bluetooth as a standard feature. Numerous models of keyboards, mice, printers are on the market and gaining popularity.
Right now BT has a serious advantage in the market because of market demographics. The sort of people Apple markets the Powerbook to are the same people Sony-Ericsson market the T68i and T610 to. They're also very likely to be the people picking up the higher end palms. These people have decent jobs and make enough to have cash on hand to buy cool technical gadgets.
From that perspective I hardly see Bluetooth dying. The market for high end gadgety crap is decently sized and soon enough more manufacturers will be using BT in their products. As more pedestrian products end up BT enabled more periphrial manufacturers will be cranking out BT enabled periphrials. Dead, not hardly.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The problem with Blutooth is not the concept, or even the implimentation, but the high cost.
Getting rid of wires is greatly appealing to many people. But a wireless "Bluetooth" solution costs much more than a comparable wired product.
Consider keyboards. A very nice wired keyboard and mouse combo will cost less than $30. Any comparable wireless setup will cost at least twice as much.
When the price goes down, usage will go way up.
evanchik.net
It's just resting. Can't you see? it's pining!
"Programming is life, the rest is mere details"
I've posted an article on Geekzone last week that says exactly the opposite of this.
Bluetooth and wi-fi are different things and these press guys don't get it.
Bluetooth replaces wires in a personal area network - these are *connect devices* not connected computers!
I have device A and device B. They use bluetooth to talk to each other. I'm happy. So what does "dead" mean?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
(NB:- I am writing this with my Powerbook balanced on me knee connected to Ethernet, Power, iPod, USB Sound Card)
Wires are faster, cheaper and more secure. What's more wireless chomps the battery so quickly you have to have at least one wire to power it. Sure wireless has its function and will become more useful over time as power consumption decreases and batteries get better.
Bluetooth, in a way, is of more use than WiFi. It's lower power and much easier for the average john smith to configure and use.
Where were all the 10BaseT hookups in coffee bars and airports, I know that's not entirely relevant to this discussion, but it's worth considering the the grand scheme of wireless.
A couple of friends of mine in college worked on a bluetooth engineering competition. They did not have fond things to say about it. Now we've got devices billed as bluetooth-enabled like the MS wireless keyboard -- its transceiver can't actually work with any other bluetooth devices!
Basically it's slow, fidgety, has poor market penetration and isn't a well-supported standard: too many incompatible implementations. For things like wireless mice it's overkill; for moving data around it's too slow and short range.
Funny, they said the same thing for the floppy drive........ Bluetooth will be dead when I stop using my floopy drive I say....
even if it's half-dead or something, its mainly because nothing realy uses it. by now it should have became a must for every phone, pda and notebook. but no, what you get in a new phone is a flashlight and printable covers!
I bought a pda recently, and for a reasonable price there wasn't one with bluetooth. of course I can buy a CF card, but it would wase my storage slot!
I use bluetooth every day. I sync my PDA and my phone with my laptop. I connect to the internet via my cell phone (gprs) from my laptop and pda while on the road. I use my bluetooth headset while on the run. When I climb in my car, my cell phone negotiates with my bluetooth car kit, and incoming calls mute my stereo, and come over the in-car speaker... even if I forget to cradle my phone. It's thought free.
Bluetooth has made a lot of things simpler for me. If 802.11 replaces all those applications, great. But for what it was intended, bluetooth seems to be doing a fine job for me.
My new Apple Al PowerBook just shipped today, just in time for its Bluetooth to be dead, kaput, no longer a viable solution?
Bluetooh, I hardly knew yee... thee? thou?
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I think he misses the point. He indicates that one of the reasons its dying is because 802.11x related products out doing the bluetooth products.
One thing he fails to mention is that bluetooth is intended for short distances not long distances like 802.11. Because of this, the power requirements are much less, which means you can use the bluetooth products without replacing batteries or recharging for much longer periods of time.
I will admit, I have no bluetooth, but I look forward to a new phone with bluetooth capabilities possible.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
What is this "bluetooth" you speak of? We have no such thing where I am from...
Sig.i>
GSM starts in Ireland and runs in a smooth band of contnuous service until you reach Korea.
Contrast with Us where phones you buy in Chicago don't work in Michagan. What a joke.
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
Bluetooth seems to have nothing hardware wise that dirt cheap wifi doesn't. Which is not to say the software stacks are the same, but well, "ethernet always wins", and bluetooth ain't ethernet.
Batteries are the bane of wireless devices. The only wireless technology that can win in the space occupied by wifi is one that transmits device power (like USB) in place of the existing commodity. I think Nikola Tesla tried this, and didn't exactly succeed. Or eyedropper replenshed fuel cells for earphones maybe? Dont' think so.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
...to stick a fork in Bluetooth since 2000. It JUST won't die, dammit
http://jackthehack.com
http://saveie6.com/
Well, looking at the adapters and BTO options out there, it's not even close to either one!
AC comments get piped to
Is Bluetooth Dead?
No, it's just hiding on a remote tropical island with BSD...
cue drum: ba da bah!
It is certainly not only due to Geography. Here is Switzerland you are now hard pressed to find an area without coverage. Even very remote mountain valleys have reception. If you are in a somewhat inhabited area you'll have usable coverage, maybe not inside a concrete building, but certainly by the window.
The very regulated market during the birth of the cellular system (essentially one monopoly per country) has helped to get the one GSM system going everywhere. Deregulation has helped to get the prices down now, so we sort of enjoy the best of both worlds.
Markus
I think you're wrong- consider these points:
What is Bluetooth?
Short-range RF wireless- nothing more.
What advantages does it have over already-existing FastIR?
You don't have to aim it.
That's it.
Yes, I'm well aware that most new phones are coming with Bluetooth, but is it really being used?
Those Bluetooth headsets are big and bulky, requiring the use of batteries.
Does anyone really require this for some reason VS a lightwieght, small headset that's tied to the phone with a cord and powered by the phone's internal rechargeable battery?
What other uses are there for Bluetooth in mobile phones?
I can only think of a couple- wireless head-to-head gaming (ala N-Gage), and wireless PDA-info sync to a computer.
But even still- this has already been done with FastIR.
The "don't have to aim" thing I think helps gaming a lot more than syncing, as I can't believe that having to aim my pda at my computer is such a big deal for anyone.
As for computers, I've only seen 1 implementation of Bluetooth that made even the slightest bit of sense to me: the new hideously expensive MS Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse set.
Yes, it's expensive but it does make sense to standardize on the whole wireless keyboard/mouse systems. It comes with a USB Bluetooth receiver as well (cause your computer likely doesnt have one).
Beyond that?
I really just don't know- I don't see it going anywhere.
And it seems you've been bitten by the marketing bug as well.
Just because its showing up in phones doesn't mean its really useful for anything.
(Please point out any other uses beyond what I mention above)
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
If you're on the planet zorg, then maybe you would care what a venture capitalist thinks. It's funny that people quote these business school dumbasses. Sure, a few might have an engineering degree from an MIT or Stamford, but these were the dumbest and biggest a**holes of their class (remember that they only have undergrad degrees). We all have seen how well these idiots predicted the .con [sic] bust. If you're stupid enough to lose your money twice, by all means listen to them...a fool and his money are soon parted. I laugh when I hear anyone quote a VC. Come on guys, we are T-E-C-H not D-U-M-B.
Could you even think of a Speaker Braclet without it?
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Dude, you've got a problem. Why in hell would you watch something you don't like. Did anybody put a gun to your head?
Interesting- that is a use that had not occurred to me in my bashing article below-
That *is* pretty useful- get in your car and all your calls are automatically sent to your stereo system-
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
I worked on BT for a few years - a total piece of sh@t. It is far too complex and too slow. Also, 802.x technology now use just as little battery juice, so the low power argument doesn't hold anymore either.
Intel has been working on a rather exciting little piece of technology called the Personal Server. I'll leave it up to those who are interested to do the research. It suffices to say that it could be a big thing a couple years down the road. I know I want one! They primarily use bluetooth because it uses substantially less power than 802.11, which is a very nice thing for a portable device. An 802.11 addon can be used, but obviously you wouldn't want to use it unless you had to.
Regardless of how the personal server does, Bluetooth's power consumption merits alone will guarantee its existence for now. 802.11 isn't going to kill bluetooth, but another protocol could easily kill them both within 10 years...
Even very remote mountain valleys have reception
There's no such thing as "very remote" in Switzerland - not in a North American sense of the word.
It costs money to cover area. Look at the people per square kilometer, and it's pretty clear why the US (or Canada) isn't completely covered.
United Kingdom: 244
Switzerland: 177
United States: 29
Canada: 3.2
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
The article says 802.15.3a will replace BlueTooth, but after googling around there seems to be substantial differences. The can be summed up like this:
. . . . . .Power. . .Speed. . .Distance .0.4Mb. . 10m..100m .100Mb. . .5m...20m
BlueTooth. . 1mW. .
802.15.3a. 200mW. .
The figures were taken from here and here. The figures aren't directly compatible, as Bluetooth takes into account the "Bluetooth protocol" which evidently is optimised for power efficiency, whereas I expect the in typical use your 802.15.3a will have a VB programmer pumping TCP/IP over it. I guess that is the payback Bluetooth gets for all that complexity.
Still, the differences are measured in orders of magnitude. That does not meet my definition of "the same".
Bluetooth would be fine if scatternets were adequately defined right from the start. Without scatterners Bluetooth is crap: only good for mice and keyboards and ruining your wifi link quality.
To make things worse, all research is geared to make scatternets work. And proposals to make them work are like a$$#0!es: everybody has one. Plus chip companies made their own implementations in the meantime, but I don't want to think trying different devices together together in a scatternet.
What a loss of time and money! Scatternets should be there, well defined and working and make room for research on more interesting things.
Damn. Hardware and Software companies JUST started supporting Bluetooth. Shesss... give it some time before you start issuing death certificates.
:) I'm in heaven. It syncs up to my Mac, my address book automatically backs up (I'm accustom to loosing my cell's address book every year after my phone falls in a river or something), I can use it as a remote for iTunes VLC or my DVD player; I can use it as a remote for Keynote and PPT, I can use it as a modem, it will wake my Mac from sleep as soon as I enter the building, etc etc.
Last year bluetooth cell phones, PDAs, and devices were fairly hard to find, to say the least. I really wanted a SonyEricson w/ BT, however I couldn't find a wireless provider that would activate one for me.
Finally, this year, I was able to get a BlueTooth phone
Bluetooth shizziles ma nizzle. It's awesome.
But like I said... give it sometime. People are still adopting it. USB and FireWire didn't become successful overnight; this won't either. Stuff like this has to be in the market for at least 2 or 3 years before it's common place. BlueTooth has only been, legitimately, in the market for about a year. Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nokia, Palm, etc have only recently started using this technology.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
- Microsoft. Microsoft is the 200 pound gorilla that dominates the software jungle. And Microsoft's Bluetooth support is poor. Try installing a few Bluetooth adapters on Windows XP. There's no Plug and Play - the packaging will have dire warnings that ON NO ACCOUNT should you even let the computer SEE the dongle until you've installed the correct drivers. You then have to click through dire Windows warnings that the drivers you're using aren't certified. If you're lucky enough for your dongle to work at all, it'll be driven by a special application that assumes you know terms like 'OBEX PUSH'. Nothing is integrated into the OS. It's still a stroll in the park for the average Perl-codin' Slashdotter, but not for John Q Consumer.
- Fragmenting standards. Bluetooth isn't just Bluetooth. Different dongles and gadgets can support different profiles. For example, Bluetooth mice use an HID profile that's not found in most of the dongles out there. Because Bluetooth is still being tinkered with, it won't always "just work" like it should. There may be firmware updates available, but John Q Consumer doesn't know or care.
- Difficult setup. Some devices are a nightmare to set up. Try setting up printing over Bluetooth, then tell me I'm wrong. You have to convince the PC that its Bluetooth adapter is a parallel port, or some such nonsense. Add that to the fact that if the access point was written by company A, the manual will assume you are using company A's Bluetooth dongle and its associated cryptic interface, rather than the one from company B that you actually have. Bluetooth networks need to be substantially more self-organising to be worthwhile, while still requiring user confirmation for anything that might threaten security.
If it's to survive, in the short term, the market for Bluetooth will be in simpler devices like mobiles and that Nokia N-Gage thingy.Dead! Just like BSD and Apple! DEAD I TELL YOU!
"Bluetooth is dead"
Rubbish!
In the last couple of weeks I've used my laptop (with built-in Bluetooth) to wirelessly connect to my Bluetooth enabled GPRS mobile phone and establish an Internet connection while travelling (as a passenger) in a car up the M1 motorway at 85mph. You can't do that with 802.11/whatever/. Its not broadband but it as good as dial up and therefore fine for a bit of browsing, or sending emails.
You don't get full coverage with 802.11 AP along the motorway (highway). And AFAIK 802.11 doesn't support seamless handover from AP to AP.
I can also vouch for the seamless syncing of calendars/reminders/telephone numbers. Its also convenient for downloading pictures and wav ring"tones" to from your mobile.
Finally as somebody has also said the UK law banning non-hands free mobile use while driving surely drive the convenient Bluetooth wireless car kits.
Summary Bluetooth is not 802.11 but it _does_ have its place!
--- Rahul.
I have seen it, but I've never really heard of it taking off too much. it is pushed in mobile phones, but in the states I've heard nothing really of it being anything like the developers said it would be.
the 'bluetooth is dead' articles always make me wonder why is it then that everyday (literally) one sees more bt-enabled devices.
i live in a bt bubble: t68i paired with the mac (sms/answering machine/dialer/remote control) and a bt headset, palm tungsten also paired with the mac (just because i can) and on the road with the t68i. i know people who use bt as an alternative to more expensive wifi, and are quite happy with it. i also use bt to exchange vcards with everyone in the office (hard to find anyone who doesn't have a bt-enabled phone).
so yes, somebody should tell these people that it's 2003 now.
King Harald Baatand II (Bluetooth) of Denmark died around 986 A.D. Geeze slashdot get with the times!
For those of us old enough to remember: the frantic marketing pronouncements for Bluetooth were identical to the earlier foolish claims for IrDA. It would take over the world, change diapers, walk the dog. Well, it didn't/won't but it did/will quietly become a common and decently effective way to link two devices without wires. These snake-oil claims will subside only when the venture capitalists learn that a true incremental advance can create more value than a revolutionary lie.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
Main Entry: 1mouse Pronunciation: 'maus Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural mice /'mIs/
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English mus; akin to Old High German mus mouse, Latin mus, Greek mys mouse, muscle
Date: before 12th century
1 : any of numerous small rodents (as of the genus Mus) with pointed snout, rather small ears, elongated body, and slender tail
2 : a timid person
3 : a dark-colored swelling caused by a blow; specifically : BLACK EYE
4 : a small mobile manual device that controls movement of the cursor and selection of functions on a computer display
I'm not trying to troll here, but I've never taken Bluetooth seriously and I don't see that too many other consumers have either. The only people who seem to be excited about it are marketing and executive folks (and they seem to also be the few who are willing to spend the cash on Bluetooth-enabled gadgets). Sure, wireless connectivity is a neat idea in theory, but in practice it seems like the best characterization of Bluetooth is that it's simply unreliable. I could make similar comments about WAP devices/web phones as well.
was when I noticed that key-drives had replaced floppies.
USB slots should be on the front, back, and everywhere.
+&x
blue tooth was supposed to be a wire replacement, not a mini-lan solution.
Anybody who knows anything about bluetooth implementation knows that it grew way beyond it's original purpose and this made it too complicated and therefore too expensive to be useful.
Many of the functions which bluetooth is being used for can be accomplished by much cheaper and just as effective methods.
I hope it's dead - and good riddance.
It's a lesson in feature creep.
Absolute statements are never true
I mean I see people falling for the Mac is dying and the bsd is dying and the linux is dying trolls all the time. But who would have thought that the editors at a site like this would fall for such a troll? I mean, they do read the site... Right?
When things are overhyped the perceptions that people get of them are larger than life. When one steps back and looks at where everyone said something would be in 2 years and where things have actually gotten, then you can sometimes think that the gap between the two is because something is failing, when in fact it is just expanding and growing at a lesser rate than one thought it would.
This is not a fault of the technology, but a fault in yourself for believing the media hype.
Enjoy.
Taxing certain cell phone handsets just seeds rebellion. Outlawing them must result in profit.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I've never seen a live bluetooth. Maybe they don't fare well in captivity.
wow, there are actually people who still watch baseball. I thought it was a dead sport.
Have you tried to buy a new cell phone w/bluetooth recently? You can hardly find them. My old Ericsson phone (T68m) was such a pain in the ass to "pair" with computers and other phones / headsets etc. that it really wasn't worth the money to get the feature and an add on blue tooth adapter. (Not that I had a choice since getting a data cable for most cell phones can be impossible.)
Bluetooth will die because it is too expensive, non computer friendly and the fact that it is already dropping off cell phones just proves it.
Bluetooth died because it tried to be all things to all people and was still born in committee.
Somebody needs to come up with a new and better short range radio protocol to sync devices, UWB anyone?
what good is naming it after someone when the people you are going to sell it to just don't get it.
Does it matter? Bluetooth is an interesting name whether you know what it is, or not. If a marketroid had been asked to come up with a name, they'd have come up with some hideously vapid, "multi-cultural" (means nothing in *any* language), pseudo-latinish crap with two vowels at either end, one in the middle, and some inoffensive consonants to glue the whole bland mess together. The question is, is it better to have a meaningful name where no-one knows the meaning, or a meaningless name?
Ironically, I really liked (and, I guess, still do) the name 'Amiga', but if (a) It wasn't a real word, and (b) Came out today, I'd probably loath it.
We're lucky as many people figure out Nero Burning ROM as do. [snip] I suppose it could be worse, Volkswagen could name a car the Hitler and sell it in Israel
If it's religious and/or a horrific event in living memory, it's unacceptable. If it's history, then that's fine. Hey, maybe even funny- we didn't know the people who died, so that's okay.
BTW, 'Hitler' wouldn't get by as a car name because it's too harsh sounding, and probably sounds faintly like slang for 'small penis' in the Czech language (where I'd guess they want to sell cars- okay... I made that up, but it's got to be near the truth somewhere).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I have no idea where he is getting that from. Nearly every personal electronic device of mine has bluetooth including my Nokia headset, 3650 , mouse, PowerBook G4, and my PDA's. I don't even actively seek for bluetooth devices they tend to get that.
I am personally tired of getting external periphials such as wireless keyboards and mice which require me to have a wart hanging off the side of my laptop.
I haven't even got a USB device yet! I'm still stuck in my ways with a COM1 mouse, LPT1 printer and a COM4 external 56K modem! I have about as much trust in wireless devices as I do with used car salesmen - you will eventually get burnt on the backside, it's just a matter of timing ;o)
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
Funny enough, I use bluetooth everyday. To connect my palm to my cellphone, and in a couple of days when my BT usb adaptor arrives, using BT to surf the web mobile from my laptop. It's the easiest thing I've ever used to connect to anything.
Now if only Verizon would pull their head out of thier ass and license Nokia phone, yeah yeah, different protocols/technology, I know, but Motorola's and LG's and whatever other junk Verizon sells, are falling behind compareable phones from Nokia. I don't care so much for a camera phone, I'd rather have one with Bluetooth. Come on Moto/VZW. Where's my Bluetooth?
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I've always been surprised by the sheer amount of naysayers when it comes to Bluetooth.
There are a lot of products out there with Bluetooth where the feature isn't overly-touted. All it takes is for someone to bring to people's attention that their laptop and palmpilot both have bluetooth, and once they start using it, they'll start looking for other bluetooth-enabled devices.
Bluetooth is only now reaching the point where products with the technology don't cost appreciably more than those without it.
It's about to hit the second stage of the tipping point. When the group of users starts to trickle beyond the cutting edge folks. Then as peole see 'normal people' using 'nomal objects' (cellphones, palm piots, computers) with Bluetooth, then it becomes accepted in the mainstream.
I'm not a geek, but even I've noticed that my cellphone has bluetooth in it, as does my forthcoming Toyota Prius, and I know everyone who rides in my car will start to see that bluetooth is useful, even if you don't understand exactly how it works.
Bluetooth now is where CD-ROMs were in 1993. After three years of people saying 'this is the year bluetooth will take off' it's going to happen, and it's not going to be because of marketing.
Kevin Fox
I guess that it will live a long life until someone can convince the phone companies that it is dead. I have a T610 with a bluetooth headset, Tungsten and a USB dongle. I think that they are great and I am very happy with them. I cannot see the point in any other system. At work I can even play games with collegues using the bluetooth network. We also send sound files to each other using the bluetooth (trying to see who can find the most irritating ring tone [mine is the birdy song]).
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I just bought 3 USB dongles, 2 Nokia 3650 Phones and a headset that support it. Here's what I've learned.
/.ers can do it. But Joe user? Might as well ask him to build you a gcc canadian cross for a MIPS CPU.
Hardwarewise, Once you manage the drivers to do enough of what they were designed to do, it works.
Windowswise, it reminds me of Trumpet winsock, when it was still a BETA, under windows 3.0.
You have Company A making the OS (Microsoft), Company B (WIDCOMM) [Note: In the unlikely event you're the WIDCOMM R&D Manager, FIRE YOUR ENGINEERS AND HIRE MY DOG. You will have a better product.] WIDCOMM makes the drivers (but doesn't allow you to download them), sells them in an SDK to company C (The dongle maker), while still in pre-ALPHA phase (to get a PCphone connection, I need to initiate a BT connection, hit okay on an error message, my tray icon stops reacting and THEN it works. Direct OBEX doesn't work).
Now, While Company D (another dongle maker) is selling you dongles with WIDCOMM driver 1.4.1.4, which is, well, "beta", YOUR dongle company is still issuing a pre-pre-alpha (1.2.x) version of said driver. Needless to say, your company wants to re-issue a new version of the SDK as much as they want to file for chapter 11.
Sure, you can go get "WIDCOMM 1.4.1.4", illegaly tamper with some DLL using a HEX-EDITOR to disable the LICENSE-CHECK of the driver [urp?!?!] and it works. In the unlikely event that you can fiddle with stuff. Sure, we
Furthermore, you'd think that buying two products that have the bluetooth logo on them means they'll work.
The short answer to that - well, ehm, NO. Not even when it's obvious that it should.
Since a BT device may support only PART of the protocol stack, nobody is guaranteeing it supports those you need.
Now I can understand that a headphone does not need to support the video profile. That's obvious.
But WHY for crying out loud does the Nokia 3650 Phone (built around an ARM processor, an MMC memory card and an almost-decent OS) can't support the _HEADSET_ profile? Surely someone will want to use a bluetooth headset with it?
But no. Nokia showed us just how well they can annoy their customers and make a profit. Their phones only support the "HANDSFREE" profile (designed for car handsfree kits), which can also be used by headsets, but is incidentally supported ONLY by the NOKIA headset (all other bluetooth headsets on the market will simply not work with it), which incidentally costs more than all the rest.
Oh yeah, and since its a handsfree profile, guess what. When the headset is synced, it rings using the bluetooth device instead of the phone speaker. Fine if you're in a car, but unhearable if you're with the headset, as you don't always wear it.
The ugly bit is that if you google for "Nokia 3650 profile" you'll find ZILCH on which profiles the phone supports. Nokia knows they've got an incomplete product, but instead of paying engineers to make firmware that supports it, they pay marketpeople to wash over the ugly parts. So they're hiding it behind a "supports bluetooth" logo. Not a PEEP about exactly which profiles they do [not] support.
In contrast, if you google for "Nokia HDW-2 profile" (that's the headset model) - you'll find a colorful description on Nokia's site of what a smart headset it is and how it supports both HEADSET and HANDSFREE profiles. Ooooh. Since when did the product specs on their site get so technical all of a sudden?!
But does it stop there? No, it only gets better.
What would we geeks do with a mobile phone that has an OS, an arm processor and an MMC card?
Yes, someone already wrote an MP3 playback program called mp3go.
Now the phone's audio jack is mono, buggers, but that's offtopic.
But wait, there's Bluetooth. or is there?
"bluetooth support" isn't enough. You need the phone to support the "A2DP profile", the profile for carrying cd-quality audio in Stereo.
Does the BLUETOOTH phone support it?
NO.
Does Nokia i
-
I'm currently charging my original Ericsson BT cordless headset to see if it plays with my new N-Gage. The N-Gage already works nicely with my Fujitsu Lifebook's BT, but my Microsoft BT Cordless Desktop at home doesn't play with anything (it can see the N-Gage but doesn't support the serial service). If the old headset works with the new phone I'll declare BT alive and well. If it doesn't, well, I'll say that it's still a niche product with serious interoperability issues that has failed to live up to the hype.
... you insensitive clod!
And neither is my Amiga! It's just about to become *really* popular. Vive la resistance!
The article is not "According to the EETimes," but is instead the opinion of the article's author.
Ah, my point exactly.
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
At the time writing anything for Bluetooth was a nightmare. Contrary to what the article says, their network stack, if you can call it that, was a complex and obtuse disaster that made no sense. Why couldn't they just adopt a socket style interface?!?
There were also very basic technical problems that were happily overlooked:
1. If you remove the wire from your headset, the classic (and only?) Bluetooth application example, you lose your source of power, forcing you to put a big battery in. Big so it could power the Bluetooth chip. This made the headsets huge and uncomfortable heavy.
2. There was no reliable way for a Bluetooth device to identify the correct peer in an enviornment with many other Bluetooth devices. As in example, you are sitting at the airport lounge waiting for you flight and doodling with your Bluetooth devices next to another person with his own gadgets. There was a very good chance that all your devices would start talking to each other in one cozy little network!
This was 3 years ago, maybe things have improved since.
Folks,
....
... where in the hell is it all going?
....
... all becoming smaller, more energy efficient, wearable-personal stuff (like shoes, jackets, glasses ...). I have heard that there are 8G SSD (bigger than a thumb-drive for now) that require almost no power to operate and maintain data. Wow! That's enough non-volatile memory to maintain Linux as an OS, bunches of work applications internet browser, ... SHIT, give me two of the 8G-SSD ... I'll use one for my data ... Transmeta CM RISC technology ... maybe one day the powering/charging of such devices will be by sun and ambient light or a new unobtrusive office/home charging system, and everything will appropriately auto-configure connection using something like Bluetooth signaling.
Maybe CJM does not know the answers to the questions: What is Bluetooth? What is the most appropriate way to apply Bluetooth technology?
I never considered Bluetooth as an 802.11x competitor.
I never considered Bluetooth as an IR-LAN competitor.
I never considered Bluetooth as an WiFi competitor.
Think short distances around and average home.
Think short distances around the average desk.
Yep, eventually, get rid of all signal external cables (except the AC/DC power-cords, cables, wires) keyboard, mouse, external harddisc, CD/DVD-RW, monitor
Damn power cable! Oh yea, that's right, there is Transmeta and other low power chips existing/developing. Battery technology is improving, Photo-voltaic technology is improving,
Why do I need AC Power cables? Hummm, Oh yea, to power a DC power supply that is the source of all power for electronics, charges batteries,
Dang can you imagine computers, cell-phones, boom-boxes,
If Bluetooth dies, then something better best be here or we are all screwed.
I may not have said what I wanted well, but I think the important points will get across. Bluetooth or a form of Bluetooth technology is here to stay for about 20 to 50 years.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
The other day I saw a flock of gooses flying over a herd of sheeps.
Windows 98 was actually the "big launch" for USB on the PC, as it was a heavily touted feature. Windows 98 had much better support for USB than Win95C.
I remember that! That was that launch where they were showing off USB "plug and play" and it made windows BSOD, right?I mean, I looked at Netcraft, and also noticed that there are almost NO Usenet posts!
Quite to the contrary. Bluetooth is the successor to IrDA, and a good one at that.
When I sit at my desk, I hit "Synchronize" on my desktop, and my Outlook stuff syncs with my mobile phone. One step. That's it. With IrDA, there were many more steps involved -- the first, FINDING THE DAMN PHONE, not the least. With Bluetooth, the phone remains in my belt, or my bag, or buried under heaps of paper on my desk, or wherever. Then you had to point it, align it, turn on infrared reception, set it to sync receive, blah blah.
Sync in one step. It takes as many steps for me to use my computer's more convenient headset as voice channel for my phone (!). Or to connect to the bluetooth headset.
Bluetooth was intended to REPLACE CABLES IN SHORT RANGE COMMUNICATIONS! Nothing more, nothing less. And it's doing a remarkably fine job at it. My phone is exposing its file interface, its audio interface, and its contacts/calendaring interface to my computer, everything beautifully accessible. Nothing before did that in this simple way.
Anybody who thinks Bluetooth is going away is smoking crack - it's filled the niche it indended to fill.
The reason it's called Bluetooth is that King Harald united Denmark and Norway during his rule circa 10th century. In similar fashion, Bluetooth wireless united dissimilar devices.
The marketing seems a bit off for those not familiar with European history, but I don't think that was the main problem. I mean, heck, what's USB really mean to the average consumer?
Is this apple.slashdot.org or what?
The reality distortion is getting too much!
If you don't agree that bluetooth sucks get off the site this is BULLSHIT!
Maybe slashdot is going down hill, I haven't seen Malda or Jeff in Wired for at least an issue...
There isn't any humor anymore, it is starting to reek of corporate control and lack of new ideas.
Oh yea, and get a new design some year!
Oh wait, slash is written in PERL that will never happen.
Watch it, or a certain squealer will have his 411 on teh intarweb as well...
(but you're right, it was not something that cost the Cubs the game, ultimately. And they should be more ashamed than angry if they feel otherwise.)
Examples.. counterpoints..
fucking reject.
"It is you who are confused, about a great many things."
Me, I'd mod it -1 Offtopic
Of course you would. You're just as humorless and uptight as all the other groupthinking slashbots that reward each other in the collossal circle-jerk known as the slashdot karma-based mod system.
That said, I also wonder, why you don't have mod points, seeing how you play the gold-star-grabbing game so well...
What more can be said.. its almost non existant...
Just a failed buzzword mostly.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Didn't Bluetooth define a new network stack all the way through the transport layer, rather than the way 802.11 was developed such that it exposed a low error rate abstraction that TCP/IP would run over? Given that so many devices will have a TCP/IP implementation and of course the huge amounts of money directed towards 802.11 (Intel especially, no?), Bluetooth seems to become a complicated, incompatible, and even unnecessary beast. I'm not saying Bluetooth doesn't have merits, but industry support and ease of implementation lie elsewhere.
I got to play with a Sony Clie 50 the other day so I ordered one for myself. It will be my first Bluetooth device. Here's what the problem is as I see it:
NOBODY SHOWS IT OFF!
Pretty darn simple really. The first time I saw what Bluetooth could do was a few weeks ago on The Screen Savers on Tech TV. Leo showed off his Nokia 3650 and tried (but failed) to control iTunes with it. Some tech glitch happened but he did a great job describing it. That short segment they did is what sold me on it's ability.
Granted, I know and have known what it is capable of, but it boils down to "I wanna see it work".
It's like HDTV and TiVo in many ways - you can sit there all day long and talk about how great it is until you are blue in the face, but until the person you are trying to sell it to actually sees it, they ain't gonna go for it.
The only reason BT hasn't taken off greatly in the US is because of cell phone makers. As much as I love Handspring/Palm, you need look no farther than the Treo to see what I mean.
The cell phone makers are now all about pushing you to buy a "convergence device", or one that is an all-in-one cell phone/PDA/calculator/etc. Why? Because the profit margins are higher, and a convergence device encourages you to buy an expensive phone often. Most people get new phones every year or 2, for usually under $100. This costs cell phone makers a lot of money (hence the longterm contracts). BUT, if they can convince you to buy a $400 Treo and replace *that* in 2 years with *another* $400 Treo, then they've suddenly got themselves a money maker. Not so with bluetooth.
Bluetooth enables you to mix and match. Imagine for a moment that every phone out in the US has bluetooth. Now, you can pick up that $79 Samsung phone (somewhat middle-end) with a decent color screen, but nothing too fancy. Say you're a gadget fanatic, and you buy a brand new Palm Tungsten T3. So now you've got a top of the line Palm (which you may or may not need) but a middle-end cell phone (which you *know* is all you need), but with bluetooth, you can still surf the web on both, keep all your contacts on the palm and dial from the palm, and keep that phone in your pocket while you use a bluetooth headset. Best of all, you can upgrade to another $70 phone in 2 years but still keep that Tungsten T3 if it suits you. This way, your upgrade path is determined by what you want, when you want it. Not when the phone company contract is up.
As others have pointed out: look how long it's taken for USB to really take off.
About three weeks ago I bought one of the new Powerbooks. How is this related? Well after about a day I realized I couldn't live without a scrollwheel, so I bought a Microsoft Bluetooth Intellimouse. Now I can just open up the Powerbook, pull the mouse out of the bag and get to work. No wires, no muss, no fuss. Sweet! People come by my office, see it and ask how it works; then they immediately want one.
Things like this need to reach a critical mass before they truly get going. Now that Apple has this technology built into its new laptops, people will gradually start taking advantage of it. Then the PC makers will catch on, and Bluetooth will roll.
#DeleteChrome
selling point. I ride the bus alot and everyday I see more and more people plugged into some kind of personal stereo. There are a lot of electronics out there that we don't really think too much about, but with wireless technology their ripe for revival (or renaissance).
Digital information is everywhere, but the exchange of digital information is still not what it could be. Why shouldn't it be seamless?
I guess I'm waiting for the day I can turn on my mp3 player and mark a folder 'share' as easily as if I where using Kazaa. Or allow people to eavesdrop on what I'm listening to. Or share a digital business card with a girl I just met.
All the technologies are in place. In fact their common. We work with them every day.
Engineers? Your sleeping on the job.
Quack, quack.
What I want:
"Everybody spent so much time and money in the last few years on 2.5/3G networks that are completely unprofitable because it never occurred to them that surfing the web from your PHONE was going to suck."
This is what I was saying to everyone. Who the fuck wants to browse the shitty web(to see 'stocks' and 'sports scores') using a phone and a 'jog dial'? I have a nice computer at home that does web browing and gives me porn in living colours. Why would I want shitty 80-era style games on a monochrome screen, when I have a $400CDN game console at home?
Those 700 guys we just rolled the bluetooth GPS units to are going to be sad to here that it is dead.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
What a great combination... I use my T68i phone to control xmms. It's awesome. The range is actually quite good. Got the usb bluetooth adapter for about $30 and it was a breeze(tm) to install the necessary modules/userland programs.
For more info.. Go here
I've got my SE T610 phone, and 802.11b + BT on my PDA, 802.11b + BT on my PowerBook, 802.11b + BT on my Desktops.
Work is smooth, I can sync my PDA/Phone with my Desktop, Powerbook via BT. I can go online anywhere from my PowerBook and PDA using GRPS dialup via BT, or WLAN if I so happen to sit in a cafe or at home.
I remote control my presentations, DVD player, iTunes, etc. on my PowerBook using the T610 or the PDA via BT, and lock/unlock my screensaver automatically when I was away from/arrive at my computers, no button clicked.
Files are being sent via BT from each other, no more mount/unmount from the network drive, painless.
No more wires, no more plug and they just play! I cannot be more happy with these.
Er, may be not, I still have my damn firewire cables that are as thick and as clumsy as the coaxial ethernet. Should get rid of those, too...
It is obvious CJM has confused BT with WLAN.
Bluetooth isn't dead. It's the only wireless networking that is currently offered on cellphones, due to it's short range. Seriously- how many cell phones can you name with wireless connectivity to other devices other than with Bluetooth? From what I've seen there aren't any. Why? Just a guess, but I'd imagine cellular carriers are scared sheitless over 802.11n / voip proliferation conquering the current cell phone market. I personally find it aggrivating as hell having to use a Bluetooth adapter to Sync my calendar to my cell phone, when 802.11g is longer range and way more efficient.
The primary basis of Bluetooth was supposed to be a cheap single chip implementation, that would allow it to be incorporated into everything once it hit scale. But something that gets glued into everything has to be feature laden, and the marketers pushed for all sorts of widgeteria. Net result: the chipmakers never hit their cost targets.
Meanwhile, the WAVElan folks kept chugging ahead, standardized the technology as 802.11, built a market, and the usual forces of commoditization have allowed WiFi to provide 90% of the functionality of Bluetooth, at similar cost, and with better range, higher speed, a far superior peer-to-peer model, and without that evil frequency-hopping bogosity.
...-.-
Admittedly, the name is appropriate, but marketing-wise it's totally lame. If King Harald were more famous outside of the limited set of people familiar with Scandanavian history, sure, but to the other 95% of the world it sounds like tooth decay!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Hey!!! the parentheses are good for something
The main problem is simply that people think it is good for things it isn't good for, like carrying high-quality stereo digital audio.
People would commonly think "How can I use Bluetooth to solve this problem" instead of "Is Bluetooth a good match for this problem".
The killer app for Bluetooth is in-car handsfree speakerphone systems that automatically work with your phone when you sit in the car. Without connecting a cable or pressing a single button to set it up, calls are routed to your in-car handsfree system.
This is superior even to a headset, which you must remember to connect when you get in the car or must fish the phone out to answer a call when it rings.
The Prius and new Acura 3.5TL have these systems this fall.
If Bluetooth is only good for this one thing, it is enough.
In reality, letting you sync your computer address book with your phone will be very popular too.
I thought of him much more than just a pet, he was my friend. I missed my friend so I knew that if I froze him in a Zip-lock freezer bag then maybe someday in the future we could fix his problem (old age and being a hamster). Perhaps I also miss all the fun times we had and wish to keep him with me some more.
Those last days were the best though, perhaps I should just leave it all with those memories. He was so cute squeeking his little chattering language and bitting at my jeans. It having become rather cold early on, I took him to the park in my pocket and decided we should both spend some time on the swing set. I was a little uncomfortable with him being in my pocket at first, felt like having keys pressed against your hip bones. However, he or my jeans shifted with a healthy crunch and then little Socktail just relaxed and got into the spirit of the swinging.
Then we played amphibious assault and stormed the beaches of the spring nearby. I imagined little Socktail thought he was in an amphibious vehicle, but he decided instead of being the victorious hero to play the part of the brave but downed Marine.
I figured it was best that we dry him off real quick, so into the drier with my clothes he went. Round and round he went, and I could almost hear his gleeful laughter. By the way, wear gloves when taking out your jeans after being in the dryer, it burned my skin and that was after 5 minutes of cooling.
What a great day that was, yet how sad I was when later Socktail became ill. He wouldn't move much and seemed to have very foul flatulence. It was later that he seemed to be dead when I noticed my dog burying him and not playing Hamster-frisbie.
I sure will miss him.
Acura's 2004 TL comes standard with Bluetooth. It allows your car to answer, talk, and dial a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone through controls on the steering wheel. It may also be voice-activated though I'm not sure about that. The phone-book and callerID information is integrated into the dash instruments. For a "dead" technology, it sure seems like a pretty big step to take for an automobile manufacturer.
Seriously, has bluetooth made any significant impact in how we get things done?
So bluetooth is really alive and well. The problem is that it's poorly designed for home (read: non-hacker) use.
I use BT to sync/transfer data between my Zaurus and desktop at both home and work. I also use BT for my cellphone headset. Then there's the fact that I'm using BT to do a gprs connection through my phone for surfing. Then there's the bluetooth kb and mouse in use on my powerbook.
Get real about 802.11. The only thing it's useful for is providing network connectivity, but that's it. And quite frankly at 4x the power usage of the AVERAGE bluetooth device, it's sort of a no-brainer for us PDA types.
Once again journalists totally mess things up. there is no point in comparing BT and 802.** cause that's just entirely different stuff - like comparing cars and jets. Sure jet is faster than car, but when you need to get to your local mall, you're not going for jet (and that will be this way at least 50 years). BT is for connecting different devices (substituting cables between them), and 802.** is for networking (connecting computers without cables). I connect from my laptop to Internet via GPRS via my BT-enabled phone, and that's just great - that's what this tech is for and it does its job just great!
When I was looking for a phone a few months ago I was looking at some Nokia phones (7650 in particular) with Bluetooth support. The most annoying thing was that one of the phones I was looking at only supported Bluetooth for data usage. What the heck is the point of adding something like Bluetooth to a phone if you are going to totally kill its possible usages down to 1. There was no way you could connect wireless headsets or anything like that to the phone.
I ended up getting a phone without bluetooth support since there was no point getting it if it was cut down like that.
I still remember when I first got my 8210 a couple of years back and wanted a USB irDA for it. Quite a few places I went were like "irDA is dead, bluetooth is the way to go now. No point selling irDA."
I am still using irDA with my new phone, Nokia 6610. irDA dead? I think not. Bluetooth dead... I fear it may be.
It was a technology that was not marketed well, had little support by manufacturers and has been killed before it was even really born.
Who knows, but maybe it is a bit early to start claiming its dead... it might make a come back, but I think something has to seriously change for that to happen.
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
BSD is dead.
They're dead, Jim.
Nokia built the N-Gage with Bluetooth capabilities, and it's going strong!
Wait a minute. What am I saying?
The guy writes as though he's never used Bluetooth -- never owned his own devices to witness just how wonderful Bluetooth is. To be sure, it is very disappointing that Nokia has not supported Bluetooth more broadly (and in a more standard manner), but Sony-Ericsson has done a superb job (witness the T68i and T616). Microsoft and Apple both now produce Bluetooth keyboards and mice.
I would predict the author has a connection to one or more companies with intellectual property in UWB. Otherwise he would know better, that UWB has a very difficult row to hoe in gaining FCC approval. He complains of Bluetooth interfering with 802.11[gb], but all of the 2.4 GHz standards support multiple channels, so interference with Bluetooth isn't a big deal. On the other hand, if one were to use his logic, UWB interferes with everything.
BSD is dead
Apple is dead
When is something BAD going to die for once?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
eetimes says that bluetooth is dead. first question always, is what is their motivation. I can only guess, but this article is the biggest piece of crap, logically, that I've read since Tuesday.
Bluetooth access points were superseded by Wi-Fi rollouts...
bluetooth was never designed as an access-point-centric technology.
Cellular handsets-the natural homeland of Bluetooth-will soon be hosting 802.11 radios...
"soon" means vaporware.
But why use a radio that can interfere with 802.11b and g....
excuse me? why let b and g interfere with your data?
And what's wrong with a wired headset....
he is arguing that *all* wireless is inferior, despite earlier b and g claims
The final nail in the Bluetooth coffin should have been the approval of the 802.15.3a PHY...
and he goes on to say it's not here yet; more vaporware. This one might pan out eventually (sorry), but not today, and he admits it. Just about all vigorous standards have new standards in committee competing to replace them down the line. This just means that there is a need for low-power PAN technology!
This guy is just whining about bluetooth!
I can only guess why - check other posts for Microsoft's position on this technology.
Well, dead or not dead, it was still marketting gone awry. Bad marketting decisions can be compensated for.
All the conceptual things that users want bluetooth for seem very real, but people are just willing to deal with the cords instead of dealing with the batteries and price. It might come back... Or something better might be created, it's all about need. We don't need blutooth right now. If something better comes along, cool. If bluetooth is the best thing, and we start needing it, we might use it.
This guy obviously has never used any Bluetooth devices. I've got bluetooth on my laptop (Al Powerbook 15"), bluetooth on my phone, and a bluetooth wireless headset.
Just how Apple made WiFi popular their implementation of bluetooth is excellent - I can sync my contacts in my address book, I can transfer calendar appointments, and the greatest feature...
I can use my cellphone as a wireless modem to the internet without any cables. I dial from the laptop using the "bluetooth modem" my cellphone connects and I'm on the internet regardless of where I am. I'm only limited by my cell coverage.
No more expensive hotel phone calls or data fees, if I'm doing work somewhere with no hotspots, I can still check e-mail, etc. If you're a business traveler, this is such a boon - no cables, no confusing configs, it just works and it works well.
Bluetooth is not dead - companies are just beginning to use it to its potential. With Apple (not surprisingly) leading the way.
I think bluetooth won't be used for what it was designed as much, but a better alternative to conventional short range wireless.
For example...Logitech and microsoft both have offerings now that use bluetooth, that allows conference rooms and the like to use them from long ranges.
Logitech has a new keyboard out that you can read about Here. Basically is a 3 piece set. Keyboard, Number pad (that has an lcd and functions as a remote also), and the mx900 mouse (bluetooth version of the much famed mx700).
Anyhow, not that you'll connect any other devices, but it looks like most places are going with this...
GeekWares - Buy and Download Today!
Man that was GREAT to program for, and the DRIVERs and protocol stacks were SUPERB.
:-)
Oh wait, no it wasn't! I sense a pattern here.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
It's not like OpenGL didn't work well on Windows even when they begrudgingly permitted it! I remember a time when it was that or nothing because Direct3d lacked a lot features (and could become unstable).
It's like they had this DirectX thing to give them HAL in Chicago, so they decided it would be better to bundle an OpenGL competitor into that infrastructure than adapting it to use it.
I sometimes think it wasn' been malicious, just a dumb, hamfisted idea born straight out of a gungho project manager based on stuff pulled from the OpenGL meetings.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
. . . if we're still predicting its death.
Some of them support syslog, which is not really much help to Windows people and a bit arcane for a lot of Linux people.
Gee-whiz, I mean syslog isn't like this CORE service of every modern Unix: why not learn how to use it? Arcane. Hardly. Essential is more like if you give a damn about your system.
I mean, do you not use the Event Viewer in Windows 2000/XP?
Syslog can email you alerts, centralize reporting, etc. etc. So why ask your access point to send you mail, just have the syslog server running "logwatch" and send you pages or whatever when you see bad shit goin' down.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
What crack wh0re thought this one up? Blue Tooth is far from dead. It's more like a child, who was a baby everyone saw potential in.
Just the other day my friend was asking me how to enable blue tooth hotsync from his pda to his computer.
My next laptop will be blue tooth enabled (the Dell inspiron 8600) and I'm sure more laptops and devices will follow.
When the article pronounce a 'newish' technology dead, that's when it's time to take a second look.
Bluetooth will become much more popular as automakers integrate it into their cars to act as a speakerphone for cell phones. The 2004 Toyota Prius, Acura TL, and Mercedes E55 all have in integrated Bluetooth as an option. It will only be a matter of time till it is offered as an option on a wider array of cars.
This is a bit off topic. I have a Sony Ericsson T610. I'm trying to figure out some sort of functionality out of linux. No applications, anything. Everything I find is sort of patchy and half working. In fact, that really goes for Windows too. It seems MacOS is the only platform that really has fully functional bluetooth capabilities.
I don't think it is quite dead yet. Nokia have just released a phone/handheld game thingo called n-gage which uses bluetooth to play local area multiplayer games. Sounds like it's still ticking to me.
In this world turning grey, strikes a chord when I say, there is black, there is white, there is wrong,there is right
Hands-free systems are required by law here in Finland, and the one I use has bluetooth. It works quite well and I can keep the phone (Nokia 6310i) anywhere in the car while talking. The max distance between of the two devices is somewhere around 10m.
Bluetooth is good for small range data transfers, and I think it could be a good replacement for IrDA, for example in laptops.
I worked on Bluetooth for two and a half years. We worked on Adaptive Frequency Hopping when we realised that there are serious problems in the ISM band. Anyway, even at that stage in the game - Bluetooth started becoming a more and more complicated technology to develop.
Today, take a look at the standard! For a chipset that's supposed to cost $5 or less and supposed to be simple it is a "hell on earth" standard to implement. So it was dead in the water before devices even were on the market. And if that's not bad enough, the Bluetooth SIG continues to make blunders by adding more and more layers onto it. When will they learn that it was just meant to replace cables, not replace every communications system on earth!!!
Bluetooth is one of those things you don't get until you've played with it. Once you get it, you'll want to convert to the bluetooth way of life.
Bluetooth isn't meant to communicate with acess points or have a full IP stack, so the moment anyone starts saying wifi has "won" doesn't get it.
When I start my car, my cell phone beeps to tell me it's connected. When a call comes in, my stereo mutes, and it says the name of the caller. At this point, I can press the answer button on my dash and the call comes in over the speaker phone. Instead, I can chose to pick up the call on the phone, but the stereo still stays muted until the call ends. It's a beautiful (but expensive) thing. I couldn't go back, and considering how little I drive I can't imagine how anyone who actually uses their cell phone regularly could live without it.
Now imagine that you're sitting on your laptop, and a call comes in. Instead of fishing the phone out of your pocket to see who it is, the caller name and number has already popped up in the corner of your screen. If you've got your wireless headset, just pop it on, and accept the call.
Anyone who doesn't see the promise of bluetooth hasn't tried it yet. Try it out and you'll understand.
Apple reminds me of a dentist. So what if blue tooth has a few cavities, after some time in the apple it'll be all filled up.
*another good reason why i need to get out more*
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."- Friedrich Nietzsche
It's actually 0-button, in the sense that you just push anywhere on the top. In this way, you can use any finger, or the whole palm. My right hand is much less tired when I work at home.
If you don't like it, you can always connect Microsoft mouse to a Mac and it will work as expected.
Odd, i just asked for a demo of a bluetooth hands free device for a cell phone and it required you to point the ear piece to what appeared to be an IR diode on the phone and then punch in a code, in order to simply use the ear piece with the phone...
Could be wrong, I bought a Samsung anyway =)
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Bluetooth has been launched as the cheapo wireless technology of the late 90ties. The technology or the basic materials for it might have been relativly cheap compared to others, the implementation, design, ... of devices actually using it is not cheap at all. Early adopters of the bluetooth technology have mostly paid high prices for their state-of-the-art wireless gadget.
...
You must also take in account the pro's and the contra's of the technology. It has limited bandwith, but, it is very efficient with energy making it a good solution where there are wireless needs in mobile devices. Put WiFi in a cellphone and you can go and recharge your battery every 2 hours
This also explains why bluetooth is dumped by pc/laptop-industry. And they are right to do it. But Bluetooth certainly has a very grateful public using it and waiting for new great applications enhancing there lives.
Newsflash: Cingular's network is a piece of crap (as I once pointed out on the "Major Problems with Cingular Network" thread) even in areas where they claim to have coverage. You'll know if you're on their network, because you'll feel like the Verizon Test Guy's evil twin every time you try to talk on your phone.
"Can you hear me now? Now? N-N-Now? Now? Now? HOW ABOUT IF I SCREAM? NO? STILL NOT? GOD DAMN YOU CINGULAR! Thank God for number portability, I'm switching!"
If your provider adds that network to the PRL, it will probably do more harm than good.
What the public wants is not some certain way of doing wireless, they just want it wireless. They don't care as long as:
1. it works
2. all the stuff you buy work together
3. it's easy and troublefree
4. it's cheap
5. it's easy to get hold of products that 2. holds true for
Obviously BT hasn't delivered, but I am sure something will deliver (if nothing else, I'm sure some cheap asian firm will steal something together) and the public will love it.
And I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of products using it, for example remote controls, cordless phones, laptops, washers (flash a message on the TV when the washer is done, would be very nice), stoves, and a bunch of stuff which I never could imagine myself.
As always, the system that you can buy in the stores and that are picked up by huge corporations will win;)
yeah, web surfing sucks, but it'd be nice if:
- My PDA stayed in sync with my desktop machine
(address books, appointments, blah, blah)
- My phone would use VoIP to route my calls over
nearby networks if it is cheaper than the telco
- Use my phone to carry my documents (MP3s) and
"squirt" them to people when I meet with them
- email meeting my Baysian filtr's urgency
threshold is routed to my phone
- My desktop recognises I am not nearby and
pause the music I was listening to
- Transmit my credit details to a vending
machine and get a drink
- Warn me that my boss's PDA is approaching
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
..That if you stick an USB bluetooth adapter in your *BSD box it will come back to life?
i have a internet shop. you would be amazed at how
...
many bluetooth enabled phones and PDAs my
bluetooth base station registers in one day.
i think though that most customers aren't even
aware of this!
everyone is trying to get their note/laptop to
talk to the internet via a mobile phone. this is
silly! how much are the mobilphone network
companies charging you for one minute?
instead one should be able to make a long distanz
phone call thru the COMPUTER using VoIP! this
would make sense. imagine bringing your bluetooth
cell phone to the office and it instantely
connects/negotiates with your desktop computer and
will start receiving/making calls thru the
computer (VoIP)! $$$MONEY$$$
i can already see public bluetooth basestations in
public squares that look like corn on the cobe; 50
USB bluettooth sticks on a 8 meter poll connected
to a 100 Mbit ethernet!
anyway security wise, two bluettoth devices have
to exchange a keypair and every device has to
accept this keypairing to make it work. it's very
manual
you can tell your bluettooth device to NOT be
dicoverable too. (not fun)
but radio is never as secure as a copperwire,
alas.
Yes, you could be wrong, but you could also be right.
This depends on the manufacturers.
I mean, who would have thought that you'd have to answer "Yes to All" seventyfive times in a row when recursively deleting a directory from the Windows Explorer? Doesn't "All" mean all?
The same goes for phone and phone accessory designers. Some of them are just plain stupid when it comes to usability.
On the other hand, what you're describing seems like a one-time operation, intended to make sure that you're connecting your handsfree set, and not that of the scary bad guy sitting in the room next door. (I won't get into the merits of that train of thought.)
You probably won't have to do it again, unless you're buying a new bluetooth phone or a new bluetooth handsfree. From the same manufacturer.
Other handsfree sets that I've seen have been a bit simpler. They don't require any pointing, at least, but you still have to approve the bluetooth device on the phone.
Of course, the easiest for you as a user would be that it Just Worked. But it would also be the easiest way to guarantee that it Doesn't Work the Way You Want.
The industry knows that UltraWideBand will have 40 times the bandwidth while taking a tenth of the voltage that Bluetooth does, and that has the potential to be cheaper per chip than bluetooth. Also, Bluetooth patents are majority owned by Ericsson while UWB companies are heavily invested by Motorola, Nokia and other cell phone manufacturers... They are not pushing Bluetooth truely.
I was so happy when Apple finally came out with the update Bluetooth enabled 15" Powerbook, only to find that the only bluetooth cell phone options from AT&T Wireless are a giant, breakable and expensive 3650 (I want a cellphone, not a camera..) and 2 Sony Erricson's which I have seen a mix of bad reviews and the fact I love the Nokia UI.
So, I'm ready to roll - but where's the cell phone support. The cell monopoly in the US sucks yet again... Going to Nokia's home site there are a bunch of small form factor Bluetooths...
Winton
I can't imagine WiFi in my mobile phone or even wireless headset.
Wired headsets are outdated and a danger in traffic.
This is just a troll.
The author of teh article is talking through his hat on that one. WiFi chipsets will not appear in handsets, at least not on the mass market.
Sure, it's technically possible to implement hybrid phones. There will be mobile VoIP phones from Cisco and others, but they'll be VoIP/WiFi only. And some PDA makers could probably extend their product set with a WiFi/GSM "smartphone" for fringe users and tech freaks. Battery life would be terrible, though. Nokia sells a GPRS/WiFi PCMCIA card, the D211, but it's only for data.
A proper cell phone + WiFi hybrid would let the end user bypass his service provider, which would eat a huge chunk of income from the wireless service providers. No sane service provider will ever support such a phone. There is no incentive for Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Motorola and the others to sell such phones. Another thing is that their network equipment sales are dependent on the good-will of the service providers -- start making phones which allow end users to use free network time and service providers will probably boycot your network equipment too.
Bluetooth has support from all parts of the market; service providers, cell phone makers, network equipment makers, and end users. It's not going to die anytime soon.
--Bud
My Microsoft Bluetooth mouse is working beautifully with my Powerbook (look mom, it's plug-n-play, no drivers).
So is my Sony Ericsson T610 (which is the best selling phone in Germany).
Can't complain about Bluetooth support. BMW and Audi even have Bluetooth car sets. Just walk up to your car and it turns into the most expensive handsfree set you ever used.
LogiTech brought a out a cool geek toy, the diNovo. Blootooth keyboard and optical mouse, brusehd aluminium and the keypad can ba seperated from the keyboard and used as TV remote controll.
*sigh* face it folks North America lags at least five years behind the leading markets for mobile technology (Asia and Europe) where Bluetooth is not only not dead, but in the lpast year or so it's begun reaching beyond the early adopters to become pretty much mass market.
As a couple of other people have pointed out, this is likely to be spurred on faster now in Europe at least by increasing legislation about mobiles and driving, (which is already pushing up sales of Bluetooth headsets here in the UK) as well as the steady growth in mobile multimedia - and yes I know that in the States and Canada you guys just want a cheap phone for voice calls, but believe it or not elsewhere on the planet this stuff is really taking off.
For example, there is a Logitech wireless moues/keyboard which uses Bluetooth, and it is one of the best you can buy. IMO, this is something Bluetooth excels at.
But when you start throwing in things which need longer range, like cell phones and stuff, you see less and less acceptance, which is either due to a price or performance issue.
As with many standards, MS has little say-so on acceptance. Take FireWire as an example.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Bluetooth is just as dead as BSD.... :-)
I don't think Bluetooth will die any time soon. I think it will become simply a wireless version of USB, whilst WLAN becomes a networking protocol only. The situation will probably end up similar to the current Firewire/USB situation. One was supposed to kill off the other, yet they currently both exist and operate side-by-side (Firewire for digital media and USB for everything else).
--Muzz
"According to the EETimes, Bluetooth is dead"
That's funny, no-one told my Nokia that. Seems to be happily sending my pictures to my PC at 30k/sec
As long as there are devices like the Nokia 3650 which only offer IrDA and Bluetooth as connectivity methods, Bluetooth is going to continue to be very much alive. My laptop doesn't have an IR port, and even if it did people have already mentioned that there are problems with having to have line of sight and stuff - what if I'm on a train and I can't get a signal on the phone unless it's near the window? That's not gonna work with IrDA - but it works fine with Bluetooth (I know - I tried it).
I'm actually completely opposite to the acticle writers opinion. :-)
I like my network wired and my peripherals wireless, not the other way around.
Granted bluetooth has been hyped too much, but it still fits its own niche better than Wi-Fi. The poor Wi-Fi's are barely now graduating from total lack of security. I haven't heard that people would drive around the town to pick up and exploit bluetooth handsfree-sets
Computers are moving towards gigabit ethernet and Wi-Fi people will have to add more and more standards to keep up.
The writer seems to think that bluetooth is dead because public hotspots and wireless internet can be done better with Wi-Fi devices. AFAIK, bluetooth wasn't meant for wideband data transfer in the first place so he must've been confused or something. If he's referring to GSM data applications which can use bluetooth/irda/serial/whatever for PC-connectivity, Wi-Fi has a LOT to do to compete in that area. In Europe at least GSM coverage is premium, not just some sucky hot-spots inside cafes, libraries and airports. The latest wifi-security upgrades even kill off the little support that wi-fi had for station roaming..
..is Bluetooth not quite dead yet?
Naah, it's just a flesh wound. In fact, Bluetooth is feeling better already.
In other news, it was also reported that BSD has finally kicked the bucket.
Obviously EETimes has totally missed the boat here. Here's what I use built in bluetooth for with my 17" PowerBook and Sony Ericsson T610:
1) Remote control iTunes, DVD-player, VLC, QuickTime, Keynote, PowerPoint, even the mouse (with screen zooming) through Salling Clicker. iTunes is particularly spectacular with live updating and searching from the Phone.
2) Use adress book to send and receive calls and SMS. SMSing really rocks, you can read and reply to messages on screen without having to take your phone out of your pocket!
3) Connect to the internet when no wireless access point is nearby.
And if I had the wireless keyboard and mouse I'd add a fourth point here. Oh well, a man can dream.
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
People are using bluetooth to make new friends
If I'm bored like on a train or something I sometimes look around the bluetooth neighbourhood, there are usually a few other devices close by. A few days ago I visited one of our company's other offices, a colleague (OK he's a Bluetooth developer) there knew I'd arrived before he saw me because his PC notified him when my phone suddenly came within range!
Bluetooth joke (funny)
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Last week I received my $0 Sony/Ericsson T610, part of my new mobile subscription. It rocks with bluetooth! I pair it with my Powerbook once, and after that I can:
sync my telephone list with my Mac
sync my calendar with my phone
use the internet while the phone is in my pocket.
up & download pictures with the phone.
and best of all: using Salling's Clicker software, I can use my phone to control a slideshow, my iTunes mp3 player, even steer the mouse around on the screen.
It works great & transparent.
Then I hooked up a Belkin bluetooth adapter with little external antenna, and the range extended from 10 meters to about 80. I wonder what's the use in that, but it's cool!
Oh, and the wireless Apple Mouse is pretty handy for presentations: you can walk around during lectures, just like with a ir remote, but you don't have to point to click.
All in all: I'm happy Bluetooth is finally usefull.
If you go with T-Mobile, you can get the SonyEricsson T610 for free and Amazon will sell u a handset for $20 on the phone purchase.
It is tooth decay. King Harald was famous for his rotten blue tooth, therefore the nicename.
Its all been done before. Commador did it to, Amiga. Its very well known that Commador did practicly no advertising, ecept maybe in parts of europe. I suspect that the US and Australia missed out on any if there was any.
Also, as i hear it, so dont quote me on it, the DreamCast was also a victom of poor management and marketing.
Theres been plenty of examples... shame we dont learn from our mistakes hey!
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that the new Acura TL ships with Bluetooth support for wireless cell phone headset functionailty. Is this a promising sign for Bluetooth in the automotive industry, or just another example of technology lag on the auto industries' part?
Looking at the latest mobile(cellular) phones, most of them support Bluetooth very nicely (SonyEricsson P800 for example), but the MS Smartphone ones don't, despite having everything else.
CART MASTER: Bring out your dead!
CUSTOMER: Here's one.
CART MASTER: Ninepence.
BLUETOOTH: I'm not dead!
CART MASTER: What?
CUSTOMER: Nothing. Here's your ninepence.
BLUETOOTH: I'm not dead!
CART MASTER: 'Ere. It says it's not dead!
CUSTOMER: Yes, it is.
BLUETOOTH: I'm not!
CART MASTER: It isn't?
CUSTOMER: Well, it will be soon. It's very ill.
BLUETOOTH: I'm getting better!
CUSTOMER: No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment.
CART MASTER: Oh, I can't take it like that. It's against regulations.
BLUETOOTH: I don't want to go on the cart!
CUSTOMER: Oh, don't be such a baby.
CART MASTER: I can't take it.
BLUETOOTH: I feel fine!
CUSTOMER: Well, do us a favour.
CART MASTER: I can't.
CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? It won't be long.
CART MASTER: No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
CUSTOMER: Well, when's your next round?
CART MASTER: Thursday.
BLUETOOTH: I think I'll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn't there something you can do?
BLUETOOTH: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy.
[whop]
CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
...that 802.11 (whatever) is effectively wireless ethernet and bluetooth is effectively wireless USB. The two have different uses.
Bluetooth isn't dead among the people I know. Most of us have bluetooth enabled phones and so pass vcards and the like to one another. There's bluetooth on our PDA's, bluetooth on our DV Cams, etc.
What I would like is a bluetooth stereo comms headset (headphones and mic) as at the moment all I can find are mono ones.
All right -- I would love to be living that lifestyle, but not if I have to do the research! Do you mind if I live off of yous?
Where do you live? What phone do you have, and from what cellular provider? What's a bluetooth car kit and where did you get one?
I'm generally fairly tech-savy, but while I have heard all sorts of rumbles about bluetooth I don't exactly know what it is intended to be, or why I am intended to think it's cool.
Is it supposed to make all my peripherals wireless? What's cool about that? Wireless peripherals are just a source of income consuming battery munchers in my case.
I've read comments here about using it to connect your laptop to cell phone. Is that cooler than some other way to connect them?
I know bluetooth is cheap. Could I set up a wireless home network with it? Is it like 802.11 like that?
I'm not trolling here. I'm really interested in why bluetooth is groovy. I haven't kept up with the geek buzz on this one.
Adam
<voice type="camp"> :-D
I prefer a nice fuche tint for my teeth
</voice>
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
With your mountains so lofty, and cell coverage so great. Finland, Finland, Finland - bet there's even good rates.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Actually the new BMW 5 series comes with officially supported bluetooth kit for mobile phones, no need to wait for 3rd party kits.
Bluetooth may be dead, but some companies are still investing in it.
Short range, low cost
That was the bluetooth goal.
My $400 PDA can take a $30 hit for 802.11a and be more useful in meetings and around the work campus for it.
My $40 phone cannot take a $30 parts hit (okay, $10 in mass production lots). It *can* take a $1 hit if that lets me sit 1 meter from my computer and sync the Address Book. And sit in my bag while my earpiece works. And 4M from my stereo while I turn on the DVD and run it around.
Friend's Empeg stereo is great. He's got 40GB of music in it, it pulls it from the car and into our ski house where we use it as the house jukebox. Ethernet, RCA outputs and it slides into its dock in the car. High quality decoder and D/As for its age. Pity they went out of business.
Different market and use from an iPod. Given "garage", and its cost, I'd want 802.11g in it so when we use it, it authenticates itself and quickly resyncs to the GirlFs playlists when she takes the car.
Buy a USB only box and the high end keyboard, trackball and bitpads need to be replaced. That SCSI disk? Now unconnectable. If you're a new customer that's fine, but having accumulated things I liked since 1985 - and not having much selection - he screwed older customers. And he's got a habit of that.
Now on the PLUS side, he created a HUGE market for USB vendors. There were more USB devices introduced in the 6 months after the iMac than their had been in 2 years of Intel boxes having this extra, unnecessary USB port.
Not unrelated: when the Mac came out it was close to unusable at 128K. But it had a huge ROM full of subroutines. What that did, for it's six months, was FORCE software vendors to NOT write their own GUI interfaces, to not use their own menu routines, but to use the stock ones in ROM.
Recall that in the DOS world, to exit Lotus 1-2-3, you hit /q [quit] then "y" [yes, really].
WordPerfect exited with the intuitive
[F7]yy
Every program had some exit routine that was unique and usually required memorization.
The limited Macs meant that every ISV used the menu routines which gave them [APPLE] [FILE] [EDIT] and [FILE] had a [QUIT] item.
In a year, when we had 512k and later 1MB, all the successfull apps could be used with low learning curve, no cheat sheets that said how to quit.
If you knew Macwrite and MacPaint, you could figure out the basics of CricketDraw and later Word 3.01 without training sessions.
The same strategy with USB and bluetooth holds:
Make it more painful for vendors to do their own proprietary wackiness to interface than to follow the design vision offered by Apple. With the costly and weird cable I have from a sprint phone to a computer, I can easily find windows drivers. Ick. Wireless and an open protocol means that Windows and Mac (and linux and freebsd) can play with a lot less pain. And mom can figure out "turn on mac, open address book, put phone near it, push [SYNC]". - the same reason Palm took off and dominated over sharp wizards and psions and 50 other devices. 1) dock. 2) sync button. Done.
Apple may hold a tiny market share, but they hold a HUGE design share.
Since the imac came out, design shifted from industrial and ugly for many PCs, but also microwaves, and phones, and TVs. Look in ANY dorm room and you will see echos of the iMac design.
Now I want an answering machine that will store its messages on my computer's drive. let me get them form the phone or from the computer. Easy(ish) with bluetooth. And I figure that soon (by jan?) every Mac Laptop will have it, ne?
I saw a Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard. So probably that means it isn't dead... they're going to choose it over Wireless USB, Zigbee or some proprietary stuff for wireless peripherals.
Don't just think about your PCs, think out of the box. See the BIG Bluetoooth picture. Toyota/Lexus, DaimerChysler, Honda/Acura, Ford/Lincoln are just SOME of the car manufacturers launching cars with Bluetooth this year. Just today the first MP3 player and wireless stereophonic headsets were launched. Gaming devices, new applications for phones, etc.. are being hinted at by top manufacturers. Microsoft unveiled their new "Athens" desktop PC this year and presented it as the desktop for the future - it had 6 Bluetooth applications built in and was the keynote feature of the product. Bluetooth is not dead!
OK, Bluetooth in the PC has not been what it was expected to be. but look at Apple - they've done it right and have made it one of the favorite features of their new PowerBooks. It is now a standard feature of all PowerBooks and they've delivered the amazingly simple to use iSync program using bluetooth. Yeah, maybe Microsoft has been slow to get it into the OS - and yeah, that's probably why some people may think its dead. But, get a Mac PowerBook, a SonyEricsson T610, an HP 995c Printer, a Motorola wireless headset, a Palm Tungsten T2, a Socket Communications GPS receiver and a new Bluetooth enabled Toyota Prius Hybrid and you'll see Bluetooth working well.
I would have to argue that it is not Bluetooth per se that is the expensive part, for if you look into purchasing phones in general, you'll see that the prices are fairly comparable. Granted, a phone incorporating Bluetooth technology may cost slightly more, but that is most likely because it offers other features as well, which also work to add value. You may want to look into the upgrade options within various cell phone service providers, becuase that can definitely cut costs back. I am currently trying to upgrade my phone to a Bluetooth-capable model, and I have found that there are several out there, all throughout a varied price range. Check it out. I swear, the Bluetooth isn't what's expensive--it's the fact that only super new products that are loaded with other stuff are the only things that have it so far. Plus, how much is it worth it, especially in states where talking and driving is against the law. I mean, cars are coming out with Bluetooth in them too...this is not dead, it's just being faced with far too much doubt by people who expected too much too soon. Like anything, you need to give new things time. I remember a day when cell phones were hardly seen...c'mon now, I think everybody (I don't mean to be targetting you at all) is being a little too closed-minded. Look at what's on the market, because it's definitely grown.
Bluetooth is not dead. The phone will be the gateway product with which consumers catch on to Bluetooth and more and more phones are including it. Just this month Panasonic and Samsung announced their first Bluetooth enabled phones - these two manufacturers are usually late bloomers when it comes to new technology and the fact that they've done so, and that US mobile operators have ordered these phones with Bluetooth is an indication of growing demand for Bluetooth enabled phones.
The growing pains being experienced by Bluetooth are no different than those being felt by USB or Wi-fi in its early years. Keep in mind that Wi-fi has been around, as a standard for 10 years. Bluetooth was an idea only 5 years ago and is just getting its feet wet. Most industry analysts, however, have nothing but praise for this accomplishment. Frost and Sullivan just said in a recent report, "Critics would be hard-pressed to name any other wireless communications technology that managed to achieve the volumes and diversity of deployment of Bluetooth in just six years," and went on to say, "There are no clear competitors to Bluetooth in the personal area networking space, and while there may be other new technologies on the fringes of its range, none have its scope, volume or maturity,". Bluetooth is not dead, its just young - but it too will grow up.