Bluetooth Gets a Speed Boost 90
Tom Keating writes to tell us that the Bluetooth SIG has announced the adoption of WiMedia's version of ultra-wideband technology for integration into current Bluetooth technology. This move hopes to push the popularity of Bluetooth by providing a new high speed option that can transmit high quality sound and video. WiMedia also has a copy of the announcement [PDF] on their site with a few additional details.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Throw out your old devices! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
Personally? I'm looking forward to syncing my address book and calendar faster--maybe continual, incremental updates, though I'm not sure why that can't already be done?--uploading snapshots, audio recordings, and videos faster, and maybe some more useful remote control features. And, of course, Internet access at something above
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:1)
Bluetooth right now is only used for rather short range communication between things like microphone/phone, phone/PC, not really for general purpose communications
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
Bluetooth slows down net access for users of ev-do for example, so verizon only "supports" access this way using a usb cable. Pulling out a usb cable to connect between laptop and cell phone is, well, so 20th Century.
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
Your download speed : 483 kbps or 60.4 KB/sec. That is 14.4% better than an average user on myvzw.com
Your upload speed : 38 kbps or 4.7 KB/sec. That is 81% worse than an average user on myvzw.com
This is over bluetooth from a Powerbook to a motorola e815 and then out via ev-do.
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
It's not all that bad under Linux, either. My notebook uses it to communicate with my phone (a Treo 650), a printer (a DeskJet 450wbt), and a mouse. The phone was the trickiest to get set up, mainly because you need to set up PPP, but the mouse and printer were simple enough.
Bluetooth on Windows is a bit of a mess. The aforementioned printer was more of a bother to get running on Windows than on Linux, and even now the Windows driver ju
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:1)
http://www.intel.com/technology/comms/uwb/ [intel.com]
Mostly because USB stacks are pretty rock solid on most devices, whereas Bluetooth stacks are awful on everything.
If you had a W-USB keyboard and system, even the Bios would have a driver for it, and it would work the way USB HID devices now, which is always flawless.
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, I use a Mac. I'd like to do the same with my Windows PC, but Microsoft implementation is pretty bad. It doesn't have to be, but MS so far hasn't designated it as a built in Windows service. If they did, all PCs would have Bluetooth capability and the connections would be seemless.
Why not si
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:1)
I plug in the dongle, turn blue-tooth on in the phone, select the computer name in the phone menu, click OK on the computer.
Blue tooth has been built into the kernel and Desktop environment for a while now.
Wait...... that sounds like the time I tried to get Blue-tooth to work in Microsoft Windows xp....... ah, now I get it.
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
True, the manual that came with it had a pretty complex procedure, but I just ignored it - one of the sites I checked it out in before buying mentioned that it worked fine after just plugging it in.
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:2)
Actually some HD transmissions go as low as 4-5Mbps. But of course, WiFi still won't play that either.
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:3, Informative)
As long as the analog hole [arstechnica.com] remains open, those cables aren't going anywhere for tons of slashdotters.
Re:Throw out your old devices! (Score:3, Interesting)
Mobile phones. I use BT on a regular basis to transfer files to and from my mobile. My mobile plays unprotected AAC files from my iTunes Music Library, so it's not uncommon for me to upload a few mega file to my phone - and backwards goes a few mega video file shot by the built in camera. And yes, I would appreciate if the progress bar could move slightly faster.
Does anyone (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone (Score:1)
(I specifically dropped verizon and got cingular because of the way verizon cripples the data functions o
Battery life is much better using BT than 802.11 (Score:1)
If I connected my pda to the internet using 802.11b it would drain a full battery in 20 minutes. Using bluetooth I can go for an hour and a half.
It's like one of the posters above said, 802.11 and Bluetooth are for different uses. If I'm connecting t
Re:Does anyone (Score:1)
Transfering files between my fiance's and my phone, and the computer as well. This makes the phone cheaper in the long run (not having to purchase ringtones of songs we already own, not paying the provider to transfer OUR pictures)
Bluetooth headset. It makes me look like a crazy person, but the convenience is worth a few stares.
Using it as the remote control for my media center pc. SonyEricsson made a little utility to make an HID profile for your phone that allo
Re:Does anyone (Score:1)
Re:Is this really needed ? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're missing the point of Bluetooth, it's all about cheap low powered comms. Range is not an issue for most apps that utilize BT, for things like transferring data, performance was really the main sticking point. If they can come out with a wifi spec that used significantly less power and was cost effective for the type of devices that they wish to integrate into, then perhaps something like wifi will supplant BT.
Re:Is this really needed ? (Score:2)
I too welcome our UWB-BT overloads.
Re:Is this really needed ? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.audioholics.com/news/pressreleases/Hai
Hopefully adopting the WiMedia version and using Bluetooth as the remote control method of choice (why not control your TV and media center from your mobile phone, even?
Roaming p2p mesh networks? (Score:3, Interesting)
But will it be good enough for instant roaming networks? I would love alert fellow road users that my bike is coming out of the ally and know that someone want in at almost the same time so that we can slow down or speed up without having to brake hard when we meet face to face at the corner.
Not realy a big aftersales market like car navigation so Linux using a mass sold protocol would be ideal. Will blutooth become good enough for such applications?
Local-Area Radar for your Heads-Up Display! (Score:2)
+ GPS
+ Dad's hunting Rifle
= Playing the "Real" Counter-Strike in your own neighborhood!
Re:Roaming p2p mesh networks? (Score:1)
Re:Roaming p2p mesh networks? (Score:2)
I'm probably only replying to this post because I'm a committed cyclist and get cars bumping me to the side of the road simply because they don't really notic
Re:Roaming p2p mesh networks? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) most people would not have such a device unless it was made compulsory to have one on your car
2) it could break, and then you'd be screwed
3) if you're in a city, you should pretty much always slow down at blind corners.. even if it's at night and you can see other vehicle's headlights, what about pedestrians? And besides that, would you want someone being able to track your bike going around town, making i
Re:Roaming p2p mesh networks? (Score:2)
That's not for Bluetooth. The range and complexity of any bluetooth network is limited by design. Basically, it's all about up to eight devices connected in one room or building. Also, Bluetooth is not designed with
Re:Roaming p2p mesh networks? (Score:2)
Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shark! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:2, Interesting)
If you RTFA, you'd have noticed that they are trying to keep the same power requirements by making efficiencies in the design. But you do make a valid point - how much power could they save without this high bandwidth?
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:2)
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:3, Insightful)
In 1951 Remington Rand was selling UNIVAC1 computers to the government. The thing could do about 1,900 operations per second and had I think about 72kilobits of ram.
It drew 125 Kwatts of electricity.
The laptop sitting in front of me now is about 300,000 times faster and draws 25 watts during peak usage.
What on earth makes you think that just becuase something is faster/better, it therefore must (by some magical law of physics I'm sure) draw more power?
With advanc
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:2)
short form.
I'm not talking about the consumption of electricity for the radio transmission
I'm talking about the consumption of electricity for the video manipulation
consider a fm only walkman vs a personal video player.. to display video in a human consumable format, requires more electricity
larger devices, larger batteries..
I have a bluetooth headset whose weight is given in grams... how will you do that with devices for video?
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:1)
I have a Zen Micro and a Zen Vision, the battery life is about the same, even though my micro is mono color and my vision is full color, (aside from diffrent codecs) now, I'm not talking video vs audio, just playing audio. you're assuming that they WILL use the bluetooth for playing video and such, whe
I need the analogy police (Score:2)
to a color tv, for the purposes of power consumption
you are comparing the equivelent of a black and white tv to a color tv
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:1, Interesting)
Wrong. Thanks to Shannon's Law, UWB can drastically cut its power output in exchange for using a huge slice of spectrum, and still be much faster than Bluetooth. Since UWB goes under the FCC limit of -41 dBm/MHz, even if Bluetooth uses Wi-Media's entire 7 GHz spectrum, you're only looking at about 0.5 mW to transmit. In comparison, Bluetooth ranges from 1 mW to 100 mW, depending on the power class. And that's even before y
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:2)
I'm talking about the handling of video part.
What will the video be used for- presumably for a human to watch.
a reciving/displaying device powerful enough to display video for a human eye will require more electricity than a simple speaker and microphone.
a transmitting/sourcing device will require more electrical consumption to suppy the video to the wireless.. e.g. if it's a camera, then the cmos will consume more than a condensing microphone
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:2)
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:1)
But that would present an incompatibility between communicating devices. It's much simpler in terms of design to keep the speed the same. Also, even if you could change the power levels, it wouldn't be part of the standard, just some optional extra.
The biggest cost, as the parent poster has pointed out is the real worl
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ladies and Gents, bluetooth has jumped the shar (Score:1)
What's nice is the protocol is already geared for throttling up or down on power, hence bandwidth. That is ideal for a mobile environment/devices.
As one of the original inventors of Bluetooth... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:As one of the original inventors of Bluetooth.. (Score:1, Funny)
Oh yeah, great... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh yeah, great... (Score:2)
That's the idea behind frequency-hopping spread spectrum. By rapidly shifting bewteen frequencies used, you appear to raise the noise floor rather than injecting a spike at a particular frequency.
Re:Oh yeah, great... (Score:2)
Speed isn't an issue (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no reason for a Bluetooth wireless headphones to cost $200 or more, other good quality wireless headphones with proprietary wireless technology could be purchased for $80.
Bluetooth mice and keyboards are like 50% - 100% more expensive then those wireless mice and keyboards with proprietary wireless technology. In fact, I heard it was cheaper for a company to developer their own wireless technology rather then licence Bluetooth for their products.
With wireless USB entering the market this year, I would be reluctant to buy anything Bluetooth until we see how Wireless USB will handle and how inexpensive it will be to license and use the product. My guess is that most companies using a proprietary wireless connection will adopt Wireless USB quickly.
For now, the only niche market that Bluetooth is succeeding in is in cell phone headsets. When it comes to general computing, Bluetooth's days are numbered.
Re:Speed isn't an issue (Score:2)
I think the reason for it's slow adoption is that too many popular devices only use v1.1, namely the treo 650. The quality is simply terrible on a bluetooth 1.1 device.
Re:Speed isn't an issue (Score:1)
As for sound quality limiting take up, my Moto HS810 is BT1.1, and the sound quality on calls is fantastic, either via my Moto V525 or Siemens SX1 (both BT 1.1), or my newer SE W550 (BT 2.0).
Re:Speed isn't an issue (Score:1)
Re:Speed isn't an issue (Score:5, Informative)
Bluetooth (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bluetooth (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bluetooth (Score:2)
no radio is completely secure (Score:2)
I once had the opportunity to meet with and talk to one of the men who was involved in breaking the Enigma cipher during World War II. "If you have anything important to say," he said, "don't transmit it over the air. You can be sure someone will be listening, if they want to. And if you've encoded it, it's a matter of time before they decode it. If the Germans hadn't been so dependent on radiotelegraphs and had bothered to use cables, we wouldn't know half as much as what we finally found out."
OT: sig (Score:1)
Re:Bluetooth (Score:2)
For many applications, security just isn't very important but data rate is. E.g., connections bewteen home stereo components -- you wouldn't be too worried about someone evesdropping on your Bluetooth audio or video. After all, if they are in Bluetooth range, they can probably hear your stereo or see your TV.
Re:Bluetooth (Score:1)
Unreferenced Fact: to beat AES through brute force it would take a machine attempting 255 keys a second 149 trillion years to crack the code.
Personally... (Score:3, Funny)
Does it even really matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
difference btw this and WUSB? (Score:1)
Re:difference btw this and WUSB? (Score:1)
The only other difference when this is all said and done will be the spectral mask used, as Bluetooth would most likely require a single world wide radio.
Bootooth (Score:1)
Re:Bootooth (Score:1)
WiFi is for long range, high speed network transfer. For everything else I use bluetooth (mouse/keyboard connection, navigating my presentation on my Linux laptop using my mobile, small network connection from my Palm), which is a nice, short range, fast enough for me multiple purpo
Re:Bootooth (Score:1)
wrong uwb, as usual (Score:1)