On Thursday, July 25, 2002, at 08:31 , Petri Ojala wrote:
> BT problems between different vendors are way beyond
> the problems of the early days of WLAN.
and Rome wasn't built in one day - neither were the pyramids of Giza
> Take any wireless technology without broadcasting options and 200
> people in
> a railroad car watching music/video will be an issue.
depends
If the idea behind this scenario is one or a few central base stations
installed in the car to provide video service to the passengers, then
yes I do see a problem and I *totally* reject the underlying suggestion
that this is what BT is intended for.
However, if those folks are watching video on their PDAs which they hold
in their hands, while each PDA gets its video stream from a portable
video player or a cam corder in the owners briefcase or rucksack, then
-provided that the technology allows to scale down the signal to a meter
or so- there need not be a problem because the maximum number of devices
that can see each other would be far less than 200, mor like 10 or 20.
Although, overall, I would still think that this example is stretching
it a bit - not really your typical application for Bluetooth but rather
more of the "Nonsense about Bluetooth" which has limited the adoption of
the technology so far.
> I would guess that
> 200 keyboards and mice might even work with Bluetooth.
So, do I. But again, I would envisage that there will be a way to scale
down the signal because it is less likely that you will operate your
keyboard 10 meters from the screen. Well, unless you have a cinema
display and sit on the couch across a very spacy living room. In any
event, the required bandwidth for keyboard and mice is very low.
> But then again, is
> there are a reason why the video should go over wireless link?
> Typically
> the screen and receiving unit are attached.
Yes, I would agree with that. Although, once the ability to do this sort
of thing over a cheap BT link is there, you never know what products
will emerge. I have seen a feature on TV about people who call
themselves cyborgs because they carry wirelessly connected notebooks all
day in their rucksacks and have a little screen unit mounted in front of
one eye. The military in the US and the UK are experimenting with
similar equipment to create the information combat field. So, it is
possible that we will eventually consider a pair of glasses with
transparent video screens built-in a consumer device as common as
sunglasses are today. This may sound crazy but if you had told somebody
in the sixties that by 2000 there will be a billion people with a pocket
communicator like the one seen on StarTrek it would have been considered
as crazy an idea.
Then again, I wouldn't mind to loose the cable between my desktop
display and its CPU and also gain a video input selector facility this
way without the use of yet another box and more cables. However, it
would make sense to go about all the other peripherals first.
> Is there are advantage of
> having a classroom full of wireless keyboards and mice? Not really,
> pretty
> much the opposite. Without cables the students will be more likely to
> steal
> the keyboards and mice.
:-) I guess the classroom is a bad example. I was mostly thinking about
home.
> It's really a question of where wireless and wired communication makes
> most
> sense.
Absolutely. That's why I think of remote control applications of the
intelligent house variety.
> It would make sense to have e.g. "wireless usb", "wireless firewire"
> and "wired bluetooth" to make the implementations easier. WLAN wouldn't
> have been a success if it wasn't so well compatible with the wired LAN.
Good point. However, while I can see some sense in wireless Firewire and
USB, I can't quite see what wired Bluetooth would be good for as those
applications which could do with a wired version are pretty well served
by USB and Firewire already. The ones that aren't are those which make
absolutely no sense in a wired context. Would you consider to connect
your rice cooker with a 5 or 10 meter cable to your desktop or to your
telephone ? The air conditioner ? TV, CATV tuner, VCR ? just in order to
remote control them ? Very unlikely. Those applications will only emerge
if there is a cheap, universally usable wireless connection system.
> Most of the high-volume peripherals are already connected through the
> LAN and would
> never benefit from e.g. Bluetooth
Absolutely.
> and there are a number of low-volume or low-bandwidth peripherals that
> would benefit
> from a single, very local wireless connection.
Absolutely.
> WLAN for keyboard or mice would be an overkill.
So would be WLAN (or any of LAN, USB, Firewire) for your rice cooker,
microwave oven, air conditioner, air fans, lights etc etc etc.
regards
benjamin
Received on Thu Jul 25 16:13:15 2002