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| | Bluetooth is
an alliance between mobile communications and mobile computing companies to
develop a short-range communications standard allowing wireless data
communications at ranges of about 10 or 25 or 100 meters.
The
Bluetooth specification was outlined in early 1999, with Bluetooth-enabled
mobile terminals such as laptops, smart phones, handheld computers and so on
likely to be first available during the year 2001.
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Bluetooth
will encompass both a standard communications interface and a low-cost
computer chip. It is a cross between the DECT (Digital European Cordless
Telephone) and iRDA (infra Red Data Association) technologies. Bluetooth
was conceived by Ericsson, but founded by Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Intel and
Toshiba. The Bluetooth Interest Group has since been joined by hundreds of
companies including Motorola, Qualcomm, Compaq, Dell, 3Com, Psion Dacom
and Lucent. Bluetooth does NOT involve mobile network transactions- its
spectrum is freely available to use in the unlicensed spectrum area (at
2.45 gigahertz). Data transmission speeds using Bluetooth are expected to
be between 720 kbps and one megabit per second (Mbps).
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This kind
of synchronization and exchange of data are Bluetooth’s major
applications, as are electronic commerce applications such as
electronically paying for parking meters, bus tickets, shopping, movies
and so on. Smart offices are envisaged in which an employee with a
Bluetooth device is automatically checked in when entering the building
and this triggers a series of actions such as lights and PCs being
switched on. The Bluetooth partners see one of its main advantages as
being that it does not need to be set up- Bluetooth runs in the background
and line of sight is not even needed for the machines to automatically
initiate and trigger processes. Such proactive intelligence could turn out
to be a nuisance rather than a convenience for Bluetooth users unless it
is under the control of the device owner(s). Indeed, the Bluetooth
standard does incorporate these kinds of control mechanisms, since each
device is assigned a unique 12 byte address and to connect to that device,
its address must be known. There will also be an enquiry feature so to
search for other Bluetooth-enabled devices within range.
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Bluetooth
will facilitate wireless Local Area Networks in which networks of
different handheld computing terminals and mobile terminals can
communicate and exchange data, even on the move and when there is no
line-of-sight between those terminals. Bluetooth will mean that if users
have several (Bluetooth-enabled) portable terminals, they can nonetheless
use them with all the advantages of an integrated smart phone, without
having to re-enter data or find the most recent versions on different
terminals
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