Bluetooth: An In-Depth Look

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Wireless technology has made an irreversible impact on modern-day life. It has unchained people from their computers, allowing them to access the Internet, send and receive messages and photos, watch video and transmit important files, all from mobile devices. One of the major players in the wireless revolution is Bluetooth, a low-power, low-range wireless method of data transfer. To learn more about this technology, let’s examine its history, applications and uses, and how it functions.

History of Bluetooth

The beginnings of Bluetooth technology go back to 1994, when Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson, engineers at Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, developed it as an alternative way to send data back and forth between machines over short distances. In 1998, it came to be managed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), whose primary purpose is maintaining Bluetooth. The SIG is made up of various companies working together to use Bluetooth as a means of communication between their products. Now, over 15,000 computing, consumer electronics and telecommunications companies are SIG members (“Bluetooth,” 2011).

The technology may be relatively new, but the name is quite old. Bluetooth technology acquired its moniker from a 10th-century Danish king, Harald Blåtand – translated into English, Harald Bluetooth (“Welcome to Bluetooth,” 2011). One of King Harald’s major achievements during his reign was unifying fighting groups in what is now known as the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. “Bluetooth” was chosen as the SIG’s code name in its beginnings, and ended up being the name for the new technology. It was chosen to reflect the device’s ability to simplify communication between different secto...

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