No wires, no connections, and it'll even talk to your fridge.
Science fiction or the real promise of Bluetooth?
Ericsson is Swedish and is generally held responsible for attaching
the name Bluetooth to wireless technology. Why it chose the name is
as much a mystery as how 10th century Danish King Harald got the
Bluetooth monicker in the first place; answers on a postcard
please.
Bluetooth is connections without cables and thus, allegedly,
without tears. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group was founded in
1998 by Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba which jointly
reasoned that, were there an open standard to enable data
transmission between mobile devices without the need to buy, carry
or connect cables, then a few people could make a few bob. Lucent,
Microsoft, Motorola and 3Com joined in 1999, making up the nine
current 'promoters', and the whole Bluetooth set-up now extends to
more than 2,600 associates.
As a March 2001 white paper rattled on happily, "Connectivity and
interoperability with Bluetooth technology means comfortable
wireless communication. No longer trouble with thousands of cables
or compatibility problems with distant devices like notebooks,
organisers, scanners, printers, telephones etc. Bluetooth supports
a lot of different electronic devices, even those with low
performance eg headphones. The Bluetooth wireless technology is a
global specification for wireless communication that guarantees
global interoperability between devices, regardless of the
supplier, and regardless of the country in which they are used, as
long as they share the same Bluetooth profile."
Physically, the gear is small. Size estimates vary, but IBM's
"about half the size of a ballpoint pen" sounds about right, and it
communicates on the 2.4GHz radio frequency, on the Industrial
Scientific and Medical band. The frequency requires no licensing,
and sends and receives data at around a mega bit per second, which
is said to be "ten times as fast as the serial cables or infra-red
connections on the back of your desktop or laptop computer." The
range is short; ten metres at level one, 100 metres at level two,
and 200 metres mooted as a future possibility.
Richard Barber is a future technologies architect at
Articom-Integralis and set the scenario thus, "Let's imagine you're
using your mobile. First of all you enter your PIN when you switch
on the device and then speak your name for biometric voice
verification. The mobile phone now knows with 90 per cent accuracy
that only the person who is authorised to do so is using it. Your
mobile phone will synchronise with your other Bluetooth enabled
devices giving access to your car, the office car park, office
building and finally your desktop PC, which will start booting as
you reach the building. This creates the ultimate personal network,
with no 'strings' attached, and without the user ever needing to
swipe a card, show a pass, or type in another PIN or
password."
Right; you wander up to your car, say "hello, it's me", and you've
got the keys to the kingdom? "In a perfect world, yes." So what
about this 90 per cent accuracy business? Security, in Mr B's
opinion, has "not been taken seriously, and is not really
integrated." There are, he said, three levels which are nothing, a
link level, where devices speak one to another and swap passwords,
and then an application layer, which depends on the exertions of
the user. People get the security they want and, as what they
generally want is convenience, that's all the manufacturers tend to
build in. It is, he said, rather like the car market; as long as
punters mainly enquire how fast it goes, and where's the switch for
the electric windows, no manufacturer is going to pay much
attention to the fact that an average, bright ten year old can get
into your wheels in eight seconds flat.
You could, said Richard Barber, get a Linux based PDA, rewrite the
Bluetooth interface, stroll into a London pub and hack into every
Bluetooth enabled device in the place; or get a friendly cleaner to
drop a GPRS linked device behind a radiator in someone's office and
thus, until the batteries run out, you can siphon off stuff from
anywhere you've got internet access. Manufacturers, he concluded,
are not going to be over bothered about security until the market
insists .
Deloitte Research mobile and wireless director Paul Lee was in some
agreement on the security issue, "It's obviously easier to hack
into a radio link than it is to cut into a cable, but to do the
Linux number in a London pub you'd need everyone's Bluetooth device
to be switched on, and if you can't be bothered to lock your door,
then you shouldn't complain when the burglars let themselves
in."
Toshiba was a founding father and Tosh Europe strategic marketing
and solutions manager Dieter Kossessa argued that, whilst Bluetooth
has been chugging along for a while and has yet to take over the
universe, its strengths outweigh its weaknesses, and its all
important advantage is serious industry support - as he analogously
and reasonably points out, VHS was never the world's best audio
visual system, but it was the one most people backed. "Bluetooth",
he said, "is here, it's available, it's going to get cheaper, and
it's going to stay."
Bluetooth issues
What will it mean for server and PC implementation?
The big advantages being touted for servers and PCs are in the
realms of allowing a server to connect to its family of networked
PCs through a non-wired interface. The difficulty with this is
assigning an address of some kind to the devices so they can be
uniquely identified and the information can be sent correctly;
there is always the question of how secure it is sending data
"through the air" but it isn't necessarily any less safe than a
wired cable.
What effect will it have on network infrastructures?
It's unlikely to cause any fundamental change in the way the
networks look today, as the limitations of distance and cost mean a
completely wireless LAN is some way off. However, using Bluetooth
to communicate from a mobile device (PDA, laptop, phone, POS
terminal, et cetera) back to the network will have a huge effect on
the 'last mile' between user and network, which should make this
easier both for end users and for administrators.
What products are available and what's coming up in the near
future?
Most of the focus has been on enabling consumer devices like mobile
phones to share the headset and handset across multiple devices.
The Bluetooth consortium wants it extended to any device, such as
TV, fridge, radio, car, printer, PC, and what have you. These are
on trial to see what value is perceived by the consumer.
What do you really think?
It's the next big wave or it's the next big drop.
Bluetooth products
Ericsson plans to launch a range of
Bluetooth equipped mobile phones, including the T39 a 'small,
powerful mobile phone. The T39's Bluetooth capability lets users
connect the phone 'effortlessly' to a PC, PDA or any other
Bluetooth device.
Ericsson
http://www.ericsson.com/bluetooth/
Nokia has released the Nokia Connectivity Pack which allows
wireless connections between the Nokia 6210 and any Bluetooth
compatible laptop. It allows the use of the Nokia 6210 as a GSM
modem connecting to a laptop within the range of 10 metres. It also
facilitates the synchronisation of calendar and contact data
between compatible PC office applications and the Nokia 6210.
Nokia
http://www.nokia.com/bluetooth/
TDK Systems Europe and Tactel have launched a Bluetooth clip-on
device that enables wireless dial-up networking, remote access and
e-mail applications for PalmV handheld devices.
TDK
http://www.tdksys.com/
Casira offers a 'top of the range' Bluetooth software and hardware
development system. This features a Class 1 radio module, RS232 and
USB interfaces, built-in I/O, capable of supporting both host-side
software development (interfacing at either HCI or RFCOMM levels),
and embedded systems development (intefacing at RFCOMM level,
and/or using Bluecore's on-chip Risc microcontroller).
Casira
http://www.csr.com/indexf5.htm
TTPCom claims to offer a turnkey BluetoothTM IP solution, ready to
deploy 'out-of-the-box'. It apparently is able to meet all
application requirements, and is suitable for single-chip, two-chip
and system-on-chip products.
TTP Com
http://www.ttpgroup.co.uk/ttpcom/bluetooth.htm