On Thursday, July 25, 2002, at 12:43 , Ken Chang wrote:
> think you know something I don't. I thought Bluetooth had died
> once but it's getting steam now because the price's fallen low
> enough to make it popular.
Bluetooth never died nor did it ever flop. What did die was the
*mis-labeling* of Bluetooth as a Wireless LAN like technology. It was
hyped as something it was never meant for and fortunately that hype
died. This in turn allows Bluetooth to finally gain ground on its own
merits.
For a number of years, we had all those companies and the media telling
us that Bluetooth would be what WiFi was meant to be, with Bluetooth
base stations in airports, coffee shops, hotels etc to provide network
access services. This was complete nonsense from the very beginning and
anybody with a bit of technical understanding could have figured it out
right away.
Now, that WLAN technology has turned out to become a reality, all those
dumb hypers who told us lies about Bluetooth all those years have now
figured out by themselves that this wasn't what Bluetooth was all about
in the first place and we are finally being told the true story.
In essence Bluetooth is a replacement technology for IR whereby the
properties of the wireless access method allow for more devices and
applications than would have been possible with IR.
So, what you seem to have perceived as the death of Bluetooth was really
the death of Nonsense about Bluetooth - Bluetooth is alive and will do
well for its intended purpose.
What puzzles me is how so many people could have got it so wrong for so
long ...
When I first learned about Bluetooth, I thought remote control for TV,
VCR, air conditioner etc, I thought cordless mice and keyboards,
cordless printers, cordless CD drives, cordless speakers and cordless
modems. I was looking forward to get rid of a whole bunch of ugly cables
under my desk and in my suitcase. I imagined I could one day use my
mobile to switch the TV on and turn the volume on my stereo up and down.
I also imagined I would have my notebook answer the mobile phone for me
if I am unavailable, then take a message and automatically enter details
into a contact manager. I imagined my notebook to be able to connect to
the internet via the mobile in my pocket if no other connection is
available. And the point of it all was to get rid of the cabling.
> will the 1 Mb/s TDMA, 3-bit MAC
> interface be there for long?
Like any other standards, we are likely to see evolvements, so there may
well be a BT2 with higher bandwidth, but for now, the bandwidth is
absolutely sufficient for what the technology is intended for.
> how about the other two WPAN standards in 802.15?
All depends on which one will reach the critical mass first. At present
it all looks as if that will be BT and once there is such a critical
mass it is unlikely that it will be replaced by something else unless
the replacing technology is way ahead or backwards compatible with the
installed base of the other.
> btw, I think a new i-link plug for both 1394 and USB might be
> a good idea. the current two USB plugs are too big for mobiles.
Well, you seem to have the idea that downloading pictures/movies/songs
into mobile phones is the only requirement. I would call that a very
narrow minded view. There are far more applications out there for most
of which you wouldn't want any messy cable...
I certainly would get a BT headset and leave my mobile in my pocket. If
I need to have a cable between the headset and the phone, I'd never use
one. Not to mention that a BT headset is also good for use with a BT
equipped notebook or desktop.
Would I get a cordless mouse and keyboard other than BT ? Unlikely
because I would be concerned about whether or not I will be able to use
it with another machine.
Would I want to have a cable between the CATV tuner and the phone to
switch channels ? Certainly not. Ditto for the VCR, the air conditioner,
rice cooker, microwave etc etc. If those 'peripherals' get BT enabled, I
could control them with a one-for-all remote control or my mobile or a
computer.
I could send a message from my mobile to the desktop back home (via
i-mode/GRPS/EDGE etc) that I will be late and the desktop will then
reprogram the rice cooker and microwave oven to have dinner ready in
time, it will turn the a/c on 30 minutes before I come home and it will
tell the VCR to record that movie I wanted to see, which I would have
missed due to coming home late.
Many people get paranoid on their way to the airport about whether or
not they have switched some appliance off back home; BT will solve that
too.
If you need to lay cables, neither I nor anybody else will want to be
bothered. BT can do it.
A printer at home or in an office is more likely to be connected than it
is to get BT enabled (though I might be wrong as far as the home is
concerned). However, a public printer, ie a photo printer in a
convenience store or photo studio is more likely to be BT enabled.
Synchronising data with a mobile device is certainly one of the many
things BT can be used for, particularly if the device is supposed to be
light and small and power consumption is an issue.
However, there is bound to be overlap with some devices using higher
bandwidth cabled interfaces such as IEEE1394 and perhaps a cradle to
avoid the plugging hassle. But this is more likely to be the upmarket
device like a semi-professional or professional camera, where cost,
weight and power consumption have a lower priority than bandwidth.
I would rather envisage that most devices will end up having BT and some
of them will have USB or 1394 in addition to BT, but for reasons of
weight, size, power consumption and pattern of use, it doesn't make a
lot of sense to equip mobile phones with USB and 1394. BT is far better
suited.
>> And IR is fading fast.
>
> that's one of the hyped new features of 504i.
A bit late isn't it ?! European phones have had IR for at least 5 years,
if not longer. Which shows again that there is no such thing as Japanese
phones are better or worse. Every market has plenty of stuff that some
other market lacks/lacked or neglects/neglected and vice versa.
rgds
benjamin
Received on Thu Jul 25 10:25:00 2002