Rococo

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.

Posted by Sean at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been accepted to give a talk at the Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days Conference. This is on in late January in Santa Clara, California, and the lineup overall is looking pretty good.

Overview here.

We're going to cover the "Past, Present and Future of JSR82( Java Bluetooth APIs)". If there's anything you'd like us to cover (we have an hour) - drop a line!

Look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Sean at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Very nice implementation of a game called Rolling Ball, winner of a Mobile Application Contest at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Uses Bluetooth in Multiplayer mode to enable person to person play. Reminds me of a game from long ago called Marble Madness (trackball heaven).

Video of it in action here, details on the project here.

Posted by Sean at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Will the shiny new GPhone have Java / Bluetooth on board? I think so.

Why?

Three simple reasons.

Advertising is going to feature heavily in the GPhone (eh, duh!). And so, who better to capitalise on the encouraging statistics around Bluetooth Marketing than The Google? They'd be mad not too. Plus, bet they'd do a sweet job on the marketing interaction. They'd "add value" to tie in options for their real-world vendors to connect with customers passing by. In one fell swoop, they'd be able to offer a way for you to deploy your ads as mobile coupons, proximity offers, yada yada. This alone is a good enough reason. But I promised three!

Presence. As in - connecting your phone to real-world stuff and real-world people, in real time, mixing together that online/on-phone stuff for magic and fun. You meet a friend. You both have GPhones. You both have "opted in" to Google's presence service (powered by Jaiku plus Google IM plus Google's new open social network platform). Updates automagically flow to your online profile. "Sean met Joe at 4ish today". Nice. Many options to drive value-add apps.

Java. Bluetooth by now is becoming standard on all mid to high end phones, and appearing as a feature on many of the low-cost models. Om says he reckons Java is slated for the GPhone. In which case, they'd just be mad not too. JSR82 ties Java to Bluetooth, opening Bluetooth to upper layer applications, and providing the crucial "near me" presence glue.

So then. Anyone know who in Google we'd talk to about our Market Leading JSR82 Technology?

:-)

Posted by Sean at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've mentioned CSR here before, in many ways the poster-child for Bluetooth Technology. Well they've just released their Q2 results, which make interesting reading. As ever, it's a "record" quarter yada yada :-) Some selected highlights:

- Revenue for the quarter is up to $215.9m (Q2 2006: $182.4m)
- Operating Profit is up $44.8m (Q2 2006: $42.4m), but operating margin is down to 20.8% (Q2 2006: 23.2%)
- Non handset segment of the business growing nicely - now 21% of total revenues (H1 2006: 13%)

I also found these comments interesting:

- They reckon they can do average revenue growth of 15% - 20% p.a. over the next five years which implies CSR will reach $2 billion revenue by 2012
- They see attach rates (% of handsets having Bluetooth) growing from 35% (2006) to 40-50% (2007) to 70% ("medium term")
- The non handset areas flagged as opportunities are MP3 and MP4 players, digital televisions, gaming consoles, PCs, cars and cameras.
- As for headsets (where they are dominant): they "expect to maintain our headset market share at above 80% in 2007 and achieve a significant leadership position thereafter."
- They have stacks of cash ($185.1M), DSO is down, Inventory looks pretty well managed
- They have a range new products under development outside of "traditional" Bluetooth (GPS, Ultra low power Bluetooth, Ultra Wideband, etc.)

All in all - I think this is a pretty good story. They have loads of cash, are managing their way out of a) handset dependency and b) Bluetooth dependency, have some new gear in the pipeline, and seem to have reasonably well-managed costs. Will have to watch that margin slippage though, but it's likely that as Bluetooth matures, the margins on that side of the business slip further, especially as China becomes a larger mix in the target market (China kills margins, methinks!!).

The market reacted to the short term guidance (which was at the low to medium end of expectations) by taking the stock down 14%. I think this is probably a buying opportunity :-)

[Disclosure: I own no CSR stock]

Posted by Sean at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ah yes. Smart Cards. Remember them? In "the future" we'd all have smart cards, and they would uniquely identify us, and we could use them ....well...for everything. Logging in, swiping in to offices, securing our PCs, opening our front doors, car doors, paying for our shopping, using the train, and so on, and so on.

Except of course, that didn't happen.

Some manufacturers put Smart Card readers in their PCs and Laptops and waited expectantly for the "killer apps" to appear. Apart from certain SOX-or-security obsessed organisations, where people have to use them for work (or even for the photocopier), they haven't caught on. My mother's never used one, and she probably never will.

However, what smart cards were originally intended to do for the user remains attractive: a single sign-on for computers or the web wherever you are? One card to carry for payment, travel, car, house, office, etc., etc. In certain countries, what DID happen is that the mobile phone began to be used for some of these tasks. In Japan especially, they led the way in using the phone for small payments (vending machines, corner shops), train ticketing (swipe your phone at the turnstile, if you have the right model), and so on.

Which brings us to today's project: PhoneID, the brainchild of Naomaru Itoi. His pitch is to use something most people now have with them (duh, a mobile phone), as storage for your trusted web ids/passwords. He explains it much better than me - so I'm going to shut up.

Give us a brief description of the project. How did it come about - what was the inspiration?

The project, PhoneID, is a framework for using a mobile phone for user authentication. The inspiration was that every Internet user seemed
to be suffering from what I call a "password hell". We all need to remember too many passwords and type them too many times. We end up using the same password over and over, or writing them down, making us vulnerable to identity theft. It is scary that most websites and security applications rely on passwords for user authentication. Once the password is stolen, a cracker can completely impersonate you. All the carefully created security architecture is gone.

This problem must be solved somehow. Smart cards are supposed to be the savior, i.e., the single security token that provides single sign-on to all the websites and security applications. However, they are not growing rapidly enough because nobody has a smart card and a reader to start with.

I thought maybe a mobile phone could be the security token for single sign-on. Almost every Internet user already has a mobile phone, and it has much computational power. Thanks to technologies like Bluetooth and JSR-82, it can communicate with a host PC at a high rate. It is a very good replacement for a smart card. This is how I started PhoneID.

In PhoneID, a J2ME enabled mobile phone stores user secrets such as passwords and keys. The phone would send passwords and other information to a host computer through Bluetooth and JSR-82.

Currently, it supports Windows Login through pGINA, and Website Login through Internet Explorer. We will expand it to support one time passwords, PKI, file encryption, etc. Check it out at http://www.phoneid.org/

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What's your background? What are you working on in general?

I was born in Japan, and came to the United States for a graduate school. I received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, working on secure hardware (smart cards, HSMs) integration into modern computer systems. After that, I have worked on smart cards and cryptographic programming at Sun Microsystems, ActivIdentity and Arcot Systems. I left a job at Arcot to found PhoneID.org, and this is my main project now. The mission of PhoneID.org is to solve the password problem using a mobile phone.

My resume can be found here.
http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/itoi/resume.html

How long have you been working on the project

2 and half months.

What stage is it at now?

The first two applications, Windows Login and Website Login, are in production.

What inspired it. Were there particular limitations of JSR82 or other technology that you were trying to address?

The password hell inspired it. JSR-82 technology has been good enough for me.

What was the biggest problem or roadblock you had to deal with in the project?

The biggest problem is that not all (or not many enough) mobile phones support JSR-82. But I believe this is changing.

In terms of technology, there were a couple of things:

• There is no widely used tutorial to learn J2ME and JSR82 programming. Ben Hui's web site comes the closest.
• There is no ASN.1 parser that runs on J2ME device. I had to write a simple marshaling tool.
• Configuration of Bluetooth device on Windows is done manually, and not pragmatically. I would like to automate this in an installer, but it is hard.

How do you see the results of the project being used?

It is getting attention. The next step is to make it used by a lot of people.

What's next? What do you hope to work on over the next 12 months?

I would like to integrate PhoneID with KeePass, which is an open source password management program. By doing this, KeePass users would be able to store and view their passwords on a J2ME phone. JSR-82 will play a crucial role here, too.

After that, there are many things I would like to add to PhoneID. Implement one time password, especially OATH, with J2ME and send the result to PC through JSR-82. Implement PKI (digital signature) with J2ME and integrate it into existing e-mail applications. Implement file encryption with J2ME and integrate it into encryption software like TrueCrypt.

Anything else I should have asked you? Anything else you'd like to say?

PhoneID tries to solve the real, widespread problem of the password hell. As far as I know, it is the first project to use a mobile phone to attack this problem. It is also unique in that it is an open source project. I chose this route because I wanted to solve many people's problems, not just few. Right now I have no income, but I am looking for a way to make enough money to survive, while keeping this project open source. It is essential for an open source project to get many users and developers involved, so please join in my effort.

Once again - you can get all the information at http://www.phoneid.org/

Thank you for taking your time.

Posted by Sean at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Automotive industry is one of the key growth markets for Bluetooth, and Java/Bluetooth, over the next few years. Bluetooth followed the typical trend for new technology in cars. The auto industry tends to "refresh" at a much slower rate than (say) the more fashion-oriented and almost disposable phone industry, so initially, Bluetooth appeared as an optional extra on high end cars (BMWs and Mercedes I think), and then gradually trickled down to mid-range and now compact cars. Initially the key application was of course handsfree access to the phone (often driven by regulatory requirements in various countries).

Now though, we're seeing initial demand for Java/Bluetooth and JSR82 to be built-in to cars for applications other than hands-free. For example, to download new diagnostic applications to Engine management Systems (EMS) that can then "report back" wirelessly to auto-technicians, or (my favourite), to enable a user to select some information from their in-vehicle navigation system (local map, places to eat, directions to hotel) and to send that over Bluetooth to their phone/PDA/laptop, thereby extending the useful range of your GPS system when you leave the car.

Anyway, enough of my ravings. Today's project has no official name as yet. If you have a good suggestion, then maybe you'd send it in. It's the brainchild of Yoshua Victor, from Indonesia. Over to him:

Give us a brief description of the project. How did it come about - what was the inspiration?

My project is to enable remote control from mobile phone to a car. The usual analog car remote typically has some functions, but the basic function is to start the engine, to lock the door and unlock the door. I’m inspired from the many times that the analog remote is out of battery and then you're stuck, because the car can’t be opened! So I came up with this idea, when your normal car remote doesn’t work, your mobile phone may always be to hand. If you could use it as a replacement remote, that would be very useful.

Tell us a little bit about yourselves. What's your background? What are you working on in general?

I’m 21 years old and studied Information Technology in Maranatha Christian University Bandung, Indonesia. Major in java programming, and I’m working on this project for my final exam to get my bachelor degree.

How long have you been working on the project

About 3 month since this February until now.

What stage is it at now?

Early days. I’m still learning and reading tutorials about JSR-82, and I’m also getting up to speed with J2ME programming, as this is my first project with J2ME, JSR-82 and other stuff. So now I’m just working on how I use Bluetooth to send data (Strings in this case) to another device. And after I can send data, I’ll start programming in JavelinStamp (which is the micro controller). I get lot of information from parallax.com (micro controller stuff), Nokia developer web site and Java forum that discusses JSR-82 (JAWBT newsgroup on Yahoo Groups).

What was the biggest problem or roadblock you had to deal with in the project?

The major block in this project is programming in mobile phones. Despite the promise of Java, if I write a program for Nokia, maybe I can’t use it for Motorola. It makes it difficult to test my project in a real device, so it's hard to make real tests for what I’m trying to do. The other problem is to connect the PC and the mobile phone with Bluetooth because often the PC doesn’t support JSR-82. Finally, I'm on quite a "learning curve" with the MicroController and figuring out how to write a program on javelinstamp that uses Bluetooth. Plenty of issues! :-)

How do you see the results of the project being used?

I see if this project is a success, it could have a big impact, because I can control certain aspects of my car, which could be very interesting and useful. Also, and if I can develop it further maybe I can use this remote for my house system, or control something else with my mobile phone and Bluetooth.

What's next? What do you hope to work on over the next 12 months?

I hope I can finish this project before 12 month from now, maybe 6 month from now I hope I can 100% finish, and if I have finish this project maybe I want to try to have some little experiment to develop this project for home system (control home, ex: light, door, alarm, etc).

Anything else I should have asked you? Anything else you'd like to say?

If anyone out there has tutorials, guides, suggestions for where I should start, I'd very much appreciate it, as I'm trying to learn a lot of stuff in a short time! Thanks! :-)

Posted by Sean at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ladeeees and genellmen, Impronto Simulator version 1.3 is now available! That's right, the world's first-and-still-best (IMHO) JSR82 Simulator has been updated, polished and primped, and is available for your consideration.

Rather than bore you with the details, let me say this: as usual, we continue provide the Simulator free for non-commercial use (hobbyists, academics, geeks!). Details on applying for it are here.

Stay tuned for more product news and the next in our series of cool JSR82 projects!

Posted by Sean at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may know that we offer our tools free for non-commercial use. We just ask for a few details in order to check the bona-fides of anyone requesting the tools, but for over five years we've been very happy to assist personal hobbyists and academic projects with free software to facilitate their development goals. We've had a lot of positive feedback over the years, and have seen some great work produced that uses the JSR82 standard in some way! :-)

As we continue to do this, we're interested in sharing the information about interesting work underway with the wider world. So - if you're planning a project using JSR82 that you think might be of interest, or have one currently underway - let us know! We're interested in giving some coverage by writing an article and short interview for the blog. And - we're feeling inclined to award some small, random prizes to those we feel impress us the most! (Bluetooth gear of course....)

So - budding developers and academics - no matter how mad the project, let us know, and maybe we can push some limelight your way! Email us at info 'at' rococosoft 'dot' com or drop a comment on the blog.

Cheers, Sean

Posted by Sean at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Way back when we first started doing JSR82 work (eh, circa 2000), we were constantly asked:

"What applications will use this API?"

These days, I have a bit of a banter I can wheel out to answer this, plus I have something I didn't have then : data. Way back then though, there would be some mumbling, followed by :

"um....games?"

There have been a number of games using the API to good effect for person to person multiplayer Bluetooth games over the last year or two. We ourselves built a version of "Who wants to be a millionaire" as a *demo* for our JSR82 work back in 2001!! It ran on Palms and allowed one person to be the quizmaster, doling out questions wirelessly to the players, who could then answer, "phone a friend" or "ask the audience" all over Bluetooth and all in Java (via JSR82 of course). Ah, the old days :-)

Anyway, here's a register article about a new one called mobslinger.

I might try putting together a list of the best in the next week or two.

Posted by Sean at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have long been advocates of Bluetooth and of course Bluetooth and Java. As you may be aware, those who make new standards tend to be techies, not marketing-types, which is why we end up with official names for standards like Java APIs for Bluetooth Wireless technologies (aka JABWT, which is the "official" name, believe it or not, for the only slightly-less-obtuse JSR82 (or JSR-82) standard). Have I closed all my brackets there? Good.

No one actually uses the term JABWT of course: it's always been, and will always will be, JSR82 (or JSR-82).

Anyway - this is on my mind as I was reading some coverage of the recent Bluetooth All-Hands meeting in Incisor magazine. As a fan of Streaming Stereo Bluetooth Audio, I'm convinced this year will be a Big Year for Stereo Bluetooth Headphones. As a nerd, I happen to know that, if I go looking to buy some Stereo Bluetooth Headphones, that one of the the key things I need to look for is A2DP support (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile). Of course, A2DP ranks about the same in consumer-friendliness terms as JAWBT or JSR82, i.e. not friendly at all.

Seems the Bluetooth SIG have copped on to the fact that they need to address how best to market Bluetooth Stereo:

There is this thing called A2DP. So far, marketing the Bluetooth stereo message
has been all about promoting this thing called A2DP. You need to make sure your
phone is A2DP–ready. What the heck does that mean to the average consumer? And
let’s not go into the territory of levels of interoperability between apparently A2DP-
compliant products. That just shouldn’t be an issue.

It was agreed that if Bluetooth stereo music is to gain widespread awareness, the first
thing that has to go is all references to A2DP. Consumers don’t need to know
about profiles. Full stop. The SIG’s experience icon programme is a first step,
but it was also acknowledged by the group that at this time, it is only really the SIG
that is fully behind the experience icons, with members planning to get behind it, but
not having done so yet.

So, if the first step is recognising the problem - then this is progress. I think we need a snappy name for Bluetooth Stereo to aid the marketing efforts. I offer here some initial top-of-the-head candidates. All suggestions to the Bluetooth SIG please!

• BlueTune or BlueTunes ("these headsets are BlueTune-ready!!")
• BlueMoo ("now with BlueMoo support")
• BlueStream (probably used for something else?)
• TuneTooth (eh, no thanks)
• audioBlue (no comment)

Anyone got a better idea?

Posted by Sean at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I tried this new Wireless Stereo Headset from Motorola at 3GSM in Barcelona in February.

Even in a very noisy environment (as you get with 45,000 + phone geeks at that show), these were very impressive: super light, comfy, and of course, "cool". Audio quality seemed to be very good, but you need a quieter environment to really tell for sure. I'll be checking them out whenever they finally appear in Ireland, and yes, they will be MINE!!!!

:-)

Posted by Sean at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My google alerts caught a new JSR82 Forum today. So I thought I'd briefly recap where to go initially to find information and help related to jsr82. If you find others - let me know!

• First off, the source - the Motorola-hosted JSR82 forum (Motorola chair JSR82 standard); here you can get the specs, download the TCKs and share information about the standard.

• Next - the JSR82 group on Yahoo Groups. Probably the most active and longest running discussion group on JSR82 - set up when the standard was launched back in March 2002. Over 2000 members.

• The new kid on the block: jsr82 not much here yet - but with that domain name, should being to get contributors and users over the next while

• www.javabluetooth.com - Bruce Hopkins's site that covers the book and gives some background on devices, tools etc.

• Aside from that, the Nokia Fora often have articles on JSR82, as do some of the Symbian fora.

Posted by Sean at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm at ETel in San Francisco this week. I met a man with a Bluetooth problem and I'm trying to help him out.

As he says himself - "it's weird, one of the world's most technically advanced cars and one of the world's most advanced phones!!! - And they don't work together".

He has a Prius. The model he has comes with Bluetooth built-in. So far so good. He had an older Treo, which played nice with the car no problem. Dialling, audio, steaming, voice commands etc. Beautiful. Then he upgrades to a shiny new Treo 700.

And everything stops working.

No dialling. Glitches. Pairing fails. Yucch! Seems pretty broken - fundamentally.

When he described this to me I was transported - back to the days of 2000-2002. That was the norm then - Nokia handsets wouldn't play nice with Motorola headsets etc. Those days are now long gone, and pretty much everything plays nice with everything else.

So this is wierd. I've been trawling the message boards and I can't figure it out yet. There's talk of a patch for the Treo, but I'm not sure. If anyone knows, a hint would be very welcome. Meanwhile my hunt for the answer continues.

Posted by Sean at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On a minor follow up note to my last post. I should also of course have mentioned the Apple iPhone when I mentioned Bluetooth headphones and music over Bluetooth being "big" in 2007.

Apple really "get" Bluetooth. The consumer experience using it on their Laptops to date is simply one of the best around, and I'd expect them to carry this through to the iPhone. It has Bluetooth 2.0 support, so pretty soon, I expect to s the "cooloscenti" wearing wireless Apple and 3rd party headphones, streaming the music in CD quality to their ears from their new iPhone, and experiencing that seamless handover stuff that Bluetooth does very well when a call comes through (music fades, player pauses, call comes through, do the call, hang up, music restarts and fades up).

Niiiice :-)

Maybe later they'll also put JSR82 support on it, to support their widgety innovation on-phone.

Posted by Sean at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Music over Bluetooth, and in particular Bluetooth Headphones are going to be BIG this year, in my humble opinion.

Logitech, Motorola, Creative and others are all now shipping top-notch Bluetooth Stereo Headphones. It's hard to explain until you've tried one of these with say, an iPod or a true music phone, or your laptop. I think you'll find:

a) the audio quality is now very, very good!
b) you're never going back to wired headphones

It's one of those little things - once you'd had the freedom of a wireless headset, and been relieved of that awful feeling whereby you accidentally drag your laptop with you when you get up from your desk, 'cos you forgot you were "plugged in" it it via your headphones, there's just no going back. Some of them even look cool.

http://store.everythingq.com/content/accessories/73-136--769.htm
http://direct.motorola.com/ens/BTStereoHS_Web_Features.asp?country=USA&language=ENS
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2412,CONTENTID=12492
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=243&subcategory=248&product=11644

Won't be long before Nike does a wireless version of it's new Hatphone, surely?

Posted by Sean at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A number of our customers for our Java/Bluetooth Development tools are using the tools to build a variety of proximity marketing solutions. As a result, we're interested in following how they get on, and how such solutions are perceived by analysts, marketeers and customers.

Carlo Longino has a good article on a recent use of such a service in London. His article generated quite a bit of follow-up and useful comment.

Our view would be - done well - these services can still be a right for certain scenarios. For example, we heard that this promotion went down very well at the time in US movie theaters.

Posted by Sean at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've mentioned them before (way back) - but it's time to mention them again: Salling, the company behind the incredibly handy Salling Clicker, has continued to add features to their software. If you have a phone with Bluetooth, and you use either Windows or a Mac, I strongly recommend trying it out.

What it is? Well, a soft-remote doesn't quite do it justice, but that's the core idea: your phone becomes a remote control for a range of applications on your computer. Start things up, make them run, all from your phone.

The classic business example is this: open your laptop, open your phone, and you can remotely start PowerPoint, choose the presentation you want, put it in to presentation mode, and then flick forwards and backwards through the pitch. Read any notes on your phone as you proceed! And so on.

The fun social example (one of many) is to control iTunes from your phone. So as you wander around the party in your pad, you can see what music is about to be played, change volume settings, and alter / add music in the playlist.

It's beautifully written - and Salling have achieved a lovely elegance to their user interface. They've made a potentially complex process very simple - even (dare I say) enjoyable!

Posted by Sean at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another snippet from GSM show. Talked to the people at Eleksen and they demo'd their stuff to me.

They don't use Java (yet), but they know their Bluetooth, and they've done a beautiful job of enabling a range of very cool products based around their smart fabric technology. This is one of those things that you have to try out to believe, and once you've tried it, you almost want an excuse to have to get one of the products: "Hey, think I'll buy a huge smartphone with a rubbish keyboard, just so I can get their Bluetooth Keyboard". Niiiice!

Posted by Sean at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may have heard about Wireless USB. If so - it can be tricky to figure out where it sits with regard to Bluetooth, Ultra Wideband (aka UWB) and other short range wireless technologies. The people behind Incisor Magazine, who are now increasingly doing short videos about wireless technologies, have a pretty good, up to date set of video discussions around Wireless USB.

Posted by Sean at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw this at CTIA in New Orleans during the week. It's a bit of fun - it rolls around and takes video and streams it back to the phone. Interesting that they are citing JSR82 as one of the key compatibility angles with it (can be controlled via any JSR82 enabled device). Reasonably addictive when you use it.

Posted by Sean at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rococo and Prague's Midletsoft Corporation have built a Bluetooth wireless technology solution that is changing the way retailers interact with customers.

Using Rococo's Impronto, a Bluetooth software development tool, Midletsoft has introduced its Jellingspot Data Server, a location-based point server platform. Jellingspot Data Server lets shoppers within a 100-meter radius of server locations to freely access information about a store, its goods and services via mobile phones and PDAs. Customers can obtain both static and dynamic electronic-based content, including text, pictures, music, video and more, directly to their mobile devices.

Users who want to access stores that are Jellingspot enabled can download the free client application for their device from www.jellingspot.com.

Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2005 some 37 billion advertisements and alerts will be sent to mobile devices in Europe, and that 65% of users will be prepared to receive ads in this way. These messages are expected to be worth $7.4 billion in revenues.

For more information about Midletsoft's Jellingspot visit www.jellingspot.com. To find out how Rococo helps speed the number of Bluetooth applications to market, visit www.rococosoft.com/java.html

Posted by Sean at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to Mike McCamon for sending us a link to an amusing blog posted after the recent IEEE 802.15 WPAN meeting: www.pulsepipe.com. Mike has recently become Executive Director of the UWB Forum, who are in a standards fight with MBOA within the IEEE 802.15 Working Group

Posted by Sean at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As early providers of Bluetooth solutions, we have been watching the emergence of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology with interest. The characteristics of this (originally military) technology make it ideal for inherently secure, very low power, very high bandwidth Personal Area Networks that are extremely robust to interference. Bluetooth's 1 Mbps and WiFi's 11 and 54 Mbps are left standing by the potential 480 Mbps of a UWB based standard. This standard is being shepherded into existence by the pithily named MultiBand OFDM Association .

So what? Good question - the pre-standard phase of such a technology is of necessity driven by the techies, but in order to succeed there must be early attention to the commercial possibilities and, just as importantly, commercial limitations. Bluetooth has its own colourful history in this respect - promising too much too early.

Multimedia streaming would seem to be an obvious first application area for UWB. Sony and HP, in a presentation to MBOA, identified 2 categories of application: Cut-the-cord applications that aim to make existing applications wireless, and WPAN applications that exploit new opportunities in ad-hoc wireless networks. In other words, the same as Bluetooth promised - and so far Bluetooth has only delivered on the first of these.

The Register has an interesting article on the politics of the MBOA.

Posted by Sean at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think the title says it all, really! See this article on Bikes in Fast Lane Motorcycle News for a review of 5 of the best Bluetooth helmets!

Posted by Sean at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rococo Software, an innovator of Bluetooth software development tools and infrastructure software, today releases the latest version of Impronto Developer Kit. Using Rococo's Linux-based Developer Kit (DK), software developers can easily design Java/Bluetooth applications for a variety of wireless devices. Rococo offers today's product release free for non-commercial Bluetooth projects.

Continue reading "Rococo Releases Java/Bluetooth Developer Kit for Linux" »

Posted by Sean at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An old idea (in Bluetooth circles) but a new and much-improved implementation - using Bluetooth to meet people with similar interests nearby . My take on this is that we're finally seeing applications that existed only in PowerPoint form four years ago, become real. Soft remotes, Bluetoth stereo headsets, and a few other categories are now beginning to roll out in volume. At last.

Posted by Sean at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See here for what looks like an interesting Bluetooth blog site at MobileWhack.

Also, see this for a useful navigation feature

Posted by Sean at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apple have done it again.

They were one of the first to bundle 802.11 with their laptops. They then led the charge for higher rate Wireless LAN with 802.11g support in both laptops and their Airport Access Point. They took Bluetooth to heart, and made it easy to iSync with PDAs and phones, and then shipped a nifty and elegant Bluetooth keyboard and mouse that "just work".

And now they've announced the Airport Express, with Airtunes, which makes it easier than ever to share your music wirelessly at home and play it through your regular audio system, and almost as an aside, is a nifty low-priced portable access point.

What next? A Bluetooth or 802.11 enabled iPod?

Posted by Sean at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rococo runs the Java/Bluetooth website www.jabwt.com, and administrates the associated mailing list. I've just been looking at the traffic on the mailing list, and it's quite interesting as a barometer of general interest in this niche technology, and in the JSR82 Java/Bluetooth APIs.

For the early part of 2003, the traffic was pretty low on the site, but once new hardware, and specifically, phones, were announced that supported the JSR82 APIs, traffic began to steadily increase. It's now running at about 150+ postings per month, up from roughly 15-30 per month a year ago.

A lot of the postings are technical/code queries. A FAQ is desperately needed, which we're hoping to get started any day now.

Posted by Sean at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)