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Ultra Low Power - Now Low-Energy Bluetooth
Bluetooth has been receiving some coverage recently on both the low-power and high-bandwidth elements of the standard being plumbed-in right now.
A few tidbits:
So, Ultra Low Power Bluetooth (the WiBree technology from Nokia being incorporated in to the standard) is now going to be Low-Energy Bluetooth. Good call! Much better name. Good piece of coverage here which has Robin Heydon from CSR dispelling some common myths about Low-Energy Bluetooth. If you've ever met Robin or seen him speak, you would be wise be be sure you stand on very, very solid ground before crossing technical swords with the man. I think he pretty much demolishes the argument about Low Energy Bluetooth not cutting it.
Of course, CSR would be talking up Low Energy Bluetooth: they're one of the first out the gates with demonstrable kit. Healthcare is a primary target, and judging from some of the traffic we've seen at Rococo around JSR82 in Healthcare, we're inclined to agree.
Meanwhile, High Speed Bluetooth, the natty tweak to the standard that will cheekily let it do bulk transfer using 802.11 if it's available, is getting some plaudits from some analysts.
And almost finally, as one of the commenters here says, a lame-o idea to have Police spamming, sorry, sending messages via Bluetooth to people while driving!! Eh, might need a bit of a re-think on that guys! Safety issues anyone (aside from the impracticality of pairing with another driver while passing by. Eh. Nope)
Now these are a much better idea! Saw them at a conference recently and gave them a whirl - very sweet.
Zyb and Imity
We're users of the Zyb platform/service here at Rococo, and so we were tickled to see it make an acquisition which brought some Bluetooth location-awareness into the fold. Zyb has bought Imity, for an undisclosed amount. The key driver seems to have been to stitch the location-based awareness (aka Pocket Radar) that Imity had implemented in to the Zyb offering.
This usage scenario for Bluetooth (where Bluetooth's location-ness is connected to one or more social networks to tell you something about other people nearby) is now becoming very common, and I'd expect to see it as a standard element of any decent mobile social networking offering within 6-12 months. Imity also brings some very cool crowd-sensing stuff to the party (see their blog for examples).
Good news - we look forward to trying out the newly integrated service when it's been "Zyb'd" and wish everyone involved all the best.
MyBlogLog and Bluetooth
We've speculated in the past about some cool ways in which Bluetooth can add a sprinkle of "location love" to already existing applications. For example, we've previously mentioned that when you add Bluetooth to (say) FaceBook client running on a phone, you get a potentially cool mashup: your fb app could now alert you to when other facebook friends are nearby (assuming they're running the same app of course) and all sorts of things could be triggered as a result:
- auto updates of status ("Sean passed Joe in the Office")
- offers to IM / message over Bluetooth on the fly ("Joe's nearby. Nudge him?")
- mini-gaming ("Joe's Androids wish to invade your phone. Fight?")
- and so on
Anyway - another datapoint arrives for this, in the form of MyBlogLog. They've mashed up Bluetooth location with a MyBlogLog client to let you see other MyBlogLog members nearby. As TechCrunch says, there are others doing similar things, also using Bluetooth - Imity, Mobiluck, Aka Aki are cited (some of the others are using GPS). Twinkle on the iPhone is using the in-built location function to show people on twitter who are nearby. All in all, the first wave of potentially engaging location apps are only now beginning to emerge; I'd expect a slew of them over the next twelve to eighteen months. Thereafter, we'll expect to see location as an element being considered in many apps - it'll no longer be a "whoah - cool!" feature.
All of which should be good for FireEagle.