SolveYourProblem
eLearning Series
Wireless Networking
Bluetooth:
Personal Wireless
by Jeff Cohen
If
you've got a wireless network for your computers already,
well, you might get a bit excited about what I'm going to
say next. How would you feel if your PDA, your mobile phone,
your mp3 player and almost everything else you connect to
your computer could be wireless too? You'd like that? Well,
it's already a reality. Read on...
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 straightaway.
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.
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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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