What is Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is a technology that connects electronic devices—from camcorders to PDAs to computers—without using wires. Consumers began to see Bluetooth in action when Toshiba starting selling a Bluetooth-enabled PC card over their website in September 2000 for $199. Other vendors plan to follow with devices ranging from PDAs to mobile phones.

A Bluetooth device uses radio signals to send information from one Bluetooth device to another through the air. For example, if you are trying to transfer a PC's address book to a PDA, first the data in an address book is translated into a language that the PDA can understand by a conduit. The data goes through the conduit to the Bluetooth device. The Bluetooth device is made up of a base-band processor, a radio, and an antenna. The base-band processor transfers the data into signals that the radio can understand, and the radio puts out signals in a frequency (2.4 gigahertz) that the antenna transmits through the air to another antenna on another Bluetooth device within 30-feet. The other device receives the data and processes it in the reverse order.
Bluetooth is supported by a Special Interest Group (SIG), which was founded in 1998 and has approximately 2,000 members, all of whom have access to Bluetooth specifications (the information needed to make a Bluetooth product). The SIG includes IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Nokia, and works to develop and promote the Bluetooth technology.

But Bluetooth, like many new technologies, may not be an instant hit. There are still plenty of questions about the ability of these devices to speak the same language. So while devices produced by the same company could communicate with each other easily, integration may be difficult when multiple vendors are involved. And while consultants at Forrester Research expect Bluetooth's popularity to grow, the firm said in a brief that many businesses won't buy in, "until user pressure forces them to in 2003."