If you already have a wireless network for your computers,
you may be very interested in what's coming next. Would you like it if your
PDA, your mobile phone, your mp3 player and almost everything else you connect
to your computer could be wireless too? It's already a reality...
Personal Area Network.
Using wireless networking with your personal gadgets is
often called PAN, which stands for Personal Area Network. The idea is that, in
the future, we'll all have laptop computers with their batteries charged and no
more need to connect any wires to them at all -- you just place your Bluetooth
device near the computer and the computer sees it and can use it straight away.
Bluetooth has been around and in-use since 1999, and it's
only getting more popular. It was designed to be secure, low cost, and easy to
use from day one.
There are two classes of Bluetooth that are in popular use:
class 1 and class 2. Class 2 is the most common and cheaper standard, allowing
you to use a device that is up to 10 metres (32 feet) away. Class 1 is rarer,
but you can still find devices that use it easily enough, and it has ten times
the range: 100 metres or 320 feet.
How Does It Work?
Bluetooth is more flexible than 802.11 wireless networking,
in exchange for the shorter range. Essentially, a Bluetooth-enabled computer
has one Bluetooth receiver installed in it, and this receiver can then be used
with up to 7 nearby Bluetooth devices. On the other end, wireless devices do
not need to have Bluetooth installed if they support it -- it is already
integrated.
Like 802.11, Bluetooth works by using radio signals to create
bandwidth. It is not, though, the same thing as an old-style wireless mouse or
keyboard, which required a receiver to be plugged into one of your computers'
ports, and didn't have range or stability anywhere near that of Bluetooth.
Many computers now come with built-in Bluetooth, especially
Apple Macs. If you want to add Bluetooth to a computer that doesn't come with
it pre-installed, you should probably use a USB to Bluetooth adapter, although
internal Bluetooth devices to install in your computer are available. If you
have a laptop and a spare PCMCIA slot, you can get Bluetooth cards for that
too.
What Can You Do with Bluetooth?
Mobile phones with Bluetooth are very popular, and so are
PDAs -- the instant synchronisation of addresses and calendars to a computer is
a useful feature. Other than that, almost anything that would usually use USB
can be done using Bluetooth, including digital cameras, mp3 players, printers,
and even mice and keyboards. If you take a look through the comprehensive list
of Bluetooth 'profiles' (kinds of devices that could, in theory, be Bluetooth
enabled), it includes cordless phones, faxes, headsets, and even video.
Basically, more than anything, Bluetooth is a replacement
for USB: some say that while 802.11 wireless networking is wireless Ethernet,
Bluetooth is wireless USB.
Not Just for Computers.
Part of the power of Bluetooth is that it isn't just used to
connect things to computers -- it can be used to connect almost anything to
anything else, if both things are Bluetooth-enabled and recognise each other.
Mobile phones, in particular, take advantage of this.
Hands-free headsets often use Bluetooth to communicate with the phone. Some
cars, for example, now have on-board computers that will connect with a
Bluetooth phone and allow you to make hands-free calls, regardless of where the phone is in the car (even if you've left it in your bag in the trunk!)
On top of that, of course, Bluetooth devices can communicate
with each other. This has led to some people sending messages from their
Bluetooth PDAs to others in close range -- not an especially useful feature,
but quite fun. This is called 'bluejacking', and the first recorded instance of
it was a man who sent a Bluetooth message to another man's Nokia phone while
they were in a bank together. What did the message say? 'Buy Ericsson'.
Since then, it has become possible to send images by
bluejacking, and it is widely believed to be the newest advertising medium --
yes, it lets billboards send messages to your phone, a practice known as
'bluecasting'. Whether you think that's cool or annoying, of course, is your
choice.
Comments