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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?"
....guess that means that BSD supports it?
Indeed it does. Just as USB and Firewire struggled in the beginning, so it goes with Bluetooth. Apple has picked up the torch, however, so I expect that in a couple of years there will be plenty of PCs (especially notebooks) that support it.
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.
As I've stated before, Microsoft does not want Bluetooth to exist. IMO. Look, it enables small devices to communicate without the PC and to Microsoft, that is a NO-NO.
Bluetooth works great for lower powered devices like cell phones, PDA's, barcode scanners, GPS's, etc for a couple of reasons. It's really all about low power/battery powered devices. Use a handheld with WiFi and you'll get 2-3 hours of continuous use while Bluetooth gets you 6-8 hours of continous use. And sure Bluetooth is slower but is 100-500Kbps a deal killer? I've seen people try to use WiFi as a wireless solution only to fail because of the large battery needed to get through one business day. Anyway, 2 features of Bluetooth which make it needed/useful:
1) Bluetooth has a low range/low power spec so it can work at 2m( class 3 ) and draw single digit mA current or 10m( class 2 ) and draw 20-40 mA or even 100m( class 1 ) and draw in the high 70-120 mA like WiFi.
2) It provides a standard for these low powered devices to communicate with each other. Not just connecting but actually communicating such as with PAN.
And, look ma, NO WINDOWS! Microsoft supports Bluetooth like they support GNU/Linux. With one hand out and smiling while the the other hand holds a chain saw. Customers be damned.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Apple's contribution to getting USB going was shipping systems where USB was *required* not optional. Sure your Packard Hell had the port, but what peripherals could you get for it? My computer had the port, but nobody made anything worth getting that had the port.
Notice Wireless Ethernet. It was available elsewhere, but Apple pushed AirPort out and marketed it as a reason why you'd want to buy Apple. They didn't invent it, they weren't first to have it, but they did manage to make it more popular than it would otherwise have been.
Gentoo Sucks
They did the same for LCD displays, Firewire devices and CD drives. And one could argue that the lack of a floppy drive forced iMac users to go online to move files.
If Microsoft's unofficial motto is "Embrace and Extend," Apple's surely is "Embrace and Market the Shit Out Of." And I'm sure it's to their advantage. Think what MS could do if they could just sit up and say, "You know what? No PCI-33 devices will be supported in the next Windows. It's the latest and fastest or it's nothing. And let's take the resources we save and put them into designing an interface that doesn't make people want to punch CEO Steve Balmer in his fat pink gut."
On second thought, don't. Because MS would embrace and extend that concept too, and drop support for any hardware that "exists currently."
Hey freaks: now you're ju