Thinkpadepot

The new Apple powerbook G4 are among the first
computers to offer Bluetooth technology 2.0+EDR.
The 2.0+EDR technology, which still backwards
compatible with 1.0, is up to three times faster
than previous versions, offering maximum data rate
transfers of up to 3 MBps. Being the first company
to certify a system with 2.0+EDR, Apple continues
to make great use of the Bluetooth technology.

Full support
In addition to the powerbook G4 portables, there
are other Bluetooth enabled computers available
from Apple, including the iBook, iMac G5, eMac,
and the Power Mac G5.

Making life easier
When you turn the Bluetooth feature on, your Mac
can easily perform a file transfer or even a
synchronization. From the Bluetooth selection
menu, you can choose to either send a file or
browse devices, quickly and easily. Or, you can
click the sync button in iSync to update your
cell phone or Palm OS handheld.

The Mac and GSM/GPRS mobile phone with Bluetooth
work to make each other more useful. By using
iSync, you can keep your phone updated without
having to type any info, as you can keep the
information in the more manageable address book
on your Mac instead.

You can also use your Bluetooth enabled Mac to
print documents and digital images to select a
printer that also supports the technology of
Bluetooth. Or, you can also use a headset to
talk to your friends during an iChat session.

Your Mac also has the ability to use Bluetooth
technology to communicate with your Palm OS
handheld. This way, you can perform a HotSync
operation without using any cables. You can also
send your business card or calendar events directly
to someone else’s handheld usingthe technology of
Bluetooth.

The implementation of Bluetooth by Apple is the
latest in a series of moves that have caused
great shift in the computer industry. Apple
established USB as the standard interface with
the launching of the first Mac back in 1998.

Since then, Apple established the 802.11 wireless
standard of networking with the launch of the
iBook and AirPort in 1999. During 2003, Apple
launched AirPort Extreme, which was based on
the new 802.11g high speed technology of wireless.

Now, Bluetooth helps to further strengthen the
dominant position of the Mac in wireless
communications, helping to preserve Apple’s
reputation for being the first to market with
innovative technology that integrates right into
the operating system.

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Bluetooth is a high speed, low powered wireless link
technology that’s designed to connect phones or other
portable equipment together with little to no work
required by the user. Unlike infrared, Bluetooth
doesn’t require line of site positioning to work.

Current prototype circuits are contained on a board
that is 0.9 cm square, with a much smaller circuit
board being developed.

When one Bluetooth device comes in contact with
another, they will automatically exchange addresses
and details of capability. Then, they can establish
a 1 MB link with security that they will use as
required. The protocols involved with handle both
data and voice, with a very flexible topography.

The technology achieves its goal by embedding tiny,
non expensive short range tranceivers into the
devices available today. The radio operates on the
2.45 GHz frequency band, and supports up to 721
KBps, along with three voice channels.

Each devices offers a unique 48 bit address from
the IEEE 802 standard, with the connections being
point to point or multipoint. The max range is
10 meters, although it can be extended to 100
meters by increasing the power. The devices are
also protected from radio interference by changing
their frequencies, also known as frequency hopping.

What’s important, is the fact that Bluetooth
devices won’t drain battery life. The specification
targets power consumption of the device, limiting
the drain on the battery. The radio chip will
consume only 0.3mA in stand by mode, which is less
than 5% of the power that standard phones use.

Bluetooth will also guarantee security at the bit
level. The authentification is controlled by the
user via a 128 bit key. The radio signals can
be coded with anything up to 128 bit. With the
frequency hopping, Bluetooth is already very
hard to listen into.

The baseband protocol is a combination of both
circuit and packet switches. Slots can be reserved
for synchronous packets as well. Each packet
will be transmitted in a different hop frequency.
Normally, a packet covers a single slot although
it can be extended to cover up to five slots.

Bluetooth can also support data channels of up to
three simultaneous voice channels. Therefore,
it’s possible to transfer the data while you talk
at the same time. Each individual voice channel
will support 64 KB.

From a technical standpoint, Bluetooth is very
different indeed. It’s the best wireless method
in the world, surpassing even infrared. For
communication on the go, Bluetooth is indeed
very hard to compete with.

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In the United States, Bluetooth gets absolutely no
respect. It is however, becoming more and more
common in notebooks, PDAs, and especially cell
phones. Bluetooth will provide wireless users a
way to transmit small amounts of data over short
distances.

Now, Bluetooth is facing stiff competition from
new wireless technology. Referred to as UWB or
Ultra Wideband, it promises data transfer of up
to 480 MB a second – while most current Bluetooth
devices transfer data up to 721 KB a second.

For the time being, Bluetooth devices are surely
cropping up. Below, we will look at some of
the accessories offered with Bluetooth technology.

Talking to the dashboard
When pairing it with a cell phone, the CCM Blue
Warrior car kit becomes a great speaker phone that
plugs into the power adapter of your vehicle. The
noise cancelling microphone will reduce background
noise efficiently, with the large buttons making
adjusting the speaker volume a snap. Although
the Blue Warrior is far from sexy or sleek, it’s
very practical.

Tiny tuning box
Part MP3 player and part hands free phone, the
compact and lightweight Sony HBM-30 is an attractive
gadget that lets you accept calls with minimal
interruption of your tunes. When you get an incoming
call it will automatically pause your music, then
you speak into the built in microphone that you
can wear around your neck or clip to your clothes.

The pen
With Nokia’s SU-1B digital pen, you can doodle and
make hand written notes in ink on a special pad
then transmit them from the pad to your Bluetooth
phone. Being an alternative to typing on a cell
phone keypad, the pen is very handy, although a
pricey tool from MMS fans.

Snapshots
If you want to make slide shows with your camera
photos, the Nokia SU-2 image viewer will let you
disply your pictures on a TV or projector. Simply
hook this square gray device to your TV’s input
with the built in cable, then beam the pictures
to the SU-2 from your Bluetooth enabled phone and
the photo fest will begin.

This device is a snap to set up and use, although
it displays resolutions of up to 640 by 480. If
you have a newer phone that takes high resolution
photos, you won’t be able to use the Nokia SU-2
image viewer.

Keep in mind, the 640 by 480 pixel photos will
appear blocky on TV screens, no matter what you
do. If your phone can send batches of photos, you
can create a slide show – although Nokia claims
you can use sequentially beamed shots as well.

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Bluetooth was designed to allow low bandwidth wireless
connections to become easy to use so even those who
are new to wireless can use them. Version 1.1 of
Bluetooth describes a low power, short range wireless
networking technology that uses radio waves to send
data at rates up to 720 kilobits a second.

The specification for Bluetooth provides for different
classes of radio that allow transmission ranges of
up to 100 meters by boosting the radio power. The
technology of Bluetooth isn’t limited to line of
sight transmission since it uses directional waves
that are capable of transmitting through many
obstructions.

Bluetooth is an industry standard communication of
wireless, meaning that it enables the connection
of other devices as well, such as cell phones,
computers, digital cameras, and other types of
electronic devices. The specification of Bluetooth
defines a radio system and a “stack” of protocol
layers and profiles. The highest layer is the
application layer, while the lowest layer is the
radio.

The wireless technology of Bluetooth is positioned
to revolutionize the personal connectivity market
by providing freedom from inconvenient fixed type
lines.

The specification for Bluetooth eliminates the need
for cables by providing a small form factor, low
cost wireless solution that will link computers,
cell phones, and other electronics. Bluetooth
also allows users to connect many ranges of devices
quickly and easily and expands communications
capabilities as well.

The size of the Bluetooth radio is amazing, as a
Bluetooth radio can be built into one or two very
small microchips then integrated into any electronic
device where wireless operations would be an
advantage.

Bluetooth also offers a robust link, which ensures
that normal operating circumstances are not
interrupted by interference from other signals
that are operating in the same frequency band.

Also known for its worldwide operation, Bluetooth
radio operates in the 2.4 GHz frequency band, which
is license free and available to any type of
radio system in the world. No matter where you
are in the world, you count on Bluetooth to work.

Security is also important. Offering advanced
security mechanisms, Bluetooth ensures a high level
of security. Therefore, authentification will
prevent unauthorized acess to important data and
make it very difficult to listen in.

Bluetooth also boasts power optimization. The radio
is power friendly and the software for Bluetooth
is very configurable, limiting the power consumption
of equipment. The radio itself only consumes a
small amount of power from a cellular phone.

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Because it meets the basic needs of connectivity in
close range, Bluetooth has a very bright future
ahead of it. Bluetooth is actually the result of
initiatives from nine leading communications and
computer industry giants, including 3-COM, Sony,
Lucent, IBM, Nokia, Microsoft, etc.

Since the forming of the original group, more than
1,800 manufacturers around the world have joined
the initiative. According to reports, the Bluetooth
technology is expected to be built into more than
100 million devices, with over 670 million enabled
Bluetooth devices.

Resulting from the amazing success of WAP (Wireless
Application Protocol), the adoption of smart phones
and hand held devices, Bluetooth can easily have
an amazing impact on your day to day life. Bluetooth
is one of the key technologies that can help to
make the mobile information society happen, by
blurring the possibilities between home, the office,
and the outside world.

The seamless integration and connectivity that
Bluetooth promises will make it possible to explore
a wide range of interactive and highly transparent
personalized services which were actually quite
difficult to dream of simply because of the
complexity involved with making such devices
communicate with each other.

Many Bluetooth pilot products have already been
rolled into the market and backed by big vendors,
which is a healthy sign for the overall acceptance
of the technology. The support for Bluetooth isn’t
limited to companies that develop only Bluetooth
enabled products.

The applications for Bluetooth can have great
impacts on other industries as well. The adoption
of Bluetooth technology is expected to spread
throughout the industry of computers.

Unlike infrared technology, Bluetooth is used by
many different wireless devices. Bluetooth offers
exceptional quality for short range wireless, even
going through walls and obstructions. While
infrared is the biggest competitor at this time,
Bluetooth far surpasses it, proving to millions that
it is the wireless communication technology of the
present day and age.

In the beginning, Bluetooth started with version 1.0,
then gradually moved from there. The current
version is 2.0+EDR, with another version currently
in development. The technology behind the Bluetooth
specification always getting better and better,
which is why it’s so popular.

In the future, you can expect the technology
behind Bluetooth to get better. Bluetooth has
proven to be the wireless standard of the future,
offering you wireless connectability for hundreds
of different devices. For cell phones or other forms
of wireless connections, Bluetooth is the one
technology that you don’t want to find yourself
without.

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