I don't know how many times I have dropped my cell phone while trying to dig through my bag for my personal digital assistant. Because phones have gotten smaller, there's nothing to prop it on my shoulder, and it ends up on the floor. I'm really not a graceful person. A lot of things end up on the floor when I'm using or carrying them.
Bluetooth, a technology released earlier this year, will help people like me to connect all personal devices without breaking things or sitting at a desk. Bluetooth is, essentially, a replacement for wires. Eventually, it could make printer cables and keyboard cords irrelevant and drastically change the market for cell phones, laptops and PDAs.
Bluetooth replaces wires and cords with a small, inexpensive radio chip. Information is transmitted on a special frequency from, say a keyboard, to the receiver in the computer. Transmissions can reach up to 30 feet.
The capabilities for Bluetooth are huge, but currently the technology is being focused in personal devices. Information can be printed with a transmission from a PDA without docking. A small earpiece with a mini microphone wirelessly transmits to a mobile phone still tucked away in a purse. It can even be as simple as a wireless keyboard working with a desktop computer.
The advantages seem obvious. Bluetooth allows people to be connected to almost anything, almost anywhere. It connects PDAs to laptops to desktops to printers without wires. It's inexpensive and can be plugged into most devices.
Bluetooth is starting to emerge as a selling point for personal devices. The PDA market has become fierce with everyone jumping in the game. Compaq, Dell, Palm, Handspring, Casio and others compete for consumers. Companies like Compaq are advertising Bluetooth capabilities in PDAs to try to gain a customer base.
The technology is already being heavily pushed on consumers. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is determined to integrate Bluetooth into this generation and next. Two thousand companies comprise SIG, including: IBM, Ericsson, 3Com, Nokia, Toshiba, Microsoft, Motorola and Agere. Most of these companies already have products on the market that have Bluetooth chips in them.
Because the technology is inexpensive, these companies are able to offer Bluetooth in products with little price increase. The actual cost of Bluetooth has remained low because the SIG is desperately trying to push it to consumers. The products that already contain Bluetooth have had very little mark up, even though the possibilities more than pay for the increase.
In the future, failure seems impossible for Bluetooth because of the brand names supporting it. Soon, any new PDA will come equipped with Bluetooth, and cell phones will come standard with it.
There will be no end to business hours and no such thing as relaxing lunches because business can be taken and done anywhere. Bluetooth will make integration of personal devices necessary.
Write to Liz at eabaker@bsu.edu
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