It's Like Bluetooth, But Without All The Pain

from the all-hail-progress dept

The Bluetooth wireless communications technology has become commonplace these days -- almost in spite of itself. While Bluetooth can be exceptionally useful for short-range communications, it can also be an enormous pain to use, in particular because of the pairing process users must go through to connect devices for the first time. Enter the new TransferJet standard, which is being backed by a number of digital camera makers who want to simplify the transfer of images and video. TransferJet can operate at speeds up to 357Mbps, 100 times faster than Bluetooth, and it doesn't require any pairing, it simply kicks in automatically and begins transfers when a compatible device is placed within 2 millimeters of the "transfer area" of a receiving device, like a PC. The cumbersome pairing process from Bluetooth has been replaced simply by proximity -- the thinking is that if a device like a camera can be placed within 2mm of a receiving device, the owner is okay with the transfer. While obviously this sort of security doesn't work in every scenario, it's good to see engineers learning from the usability foibles of previous technologies.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Hands-Free Cellular In Cars: Patented

from the sarcasm-the-whole-post-through dept

Johnson Controls, a leading provider of automotive sub-systems, has been granted a patent for a "Wireless Communication System That Enables 'Hands-free' Cellular Phone Use in Automobiles." Laws requiring hands-free driving are already enforced in a few jurisdictions, and are set to hit California in July of this year. With these laws, it's nice to know that a method for using Bluetooth as a hands-free conduit to the car's embedded radio and speakers is a patented idea. This way, we can be assured that the quality of implemented solutions is maintained, and that the inventors of this innovative idea are duly rewarded (in perpetuity) for their toil. With this legalized monopoly on Hands-Free car integration, Johnson Controls will now have the financial incentive to focus on the important inventions of tomorrow. Some may argue that a Bluetooth hands-free link is obvious, and doesn't merit a patent. Others will ask silly questions like "Isn't that what Bluetooth was supposed to do from its inception (prior to this patent filing) and later standardization?" But these oppositionazis are mistaken: this patent is "based on a patent application originally filed in the United States in 1999," back when nobody else could have ever conceived of using the car stereo and speakers for hands-free phone calls. The only reason we find this idea obvious today is because we have been exposed to the 1999 patent application, which fully revealed the brilliant invention to us... well, not entirely since the 1999 application was more vague and general, and this patent was actually just based on it and modified from 2000-2002. Wow. Hands-free through the car speakers. What will they think of next?

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Products That Get Announced And Disappear: The Bluetooth Suitcase

from the whatever-happened-to... dept

I've been reading a lot lately about the process of bringing new products to market, and what's almost as interesting is the products that never actually make it -- though there's a lot less information about those. Jeremy Wagstaff, however, is trying to find out whatever happened to Samsonite's missing bluetooth-enabled suitcase. Apparently, the product was announced back in 2002 with promises to be on the market later that year. Wagstaff found the idea compelling, while others (and I fall into this camp) found the idea baffling. What value is there in adding Bluetooth to a suitcase that can't be accomplished better and cheaper through other means? And, apparently, that's what Samsonite itself discovered soon after announcing (but not launching) the product. In various tests, it found that Bluetooth didn't work very well, not enough people had Bluetooth phones and there simply wasn't much value in Bluetooth-enabled luggage, so it went into the dustbin of products announced, but never launched.

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