People say history repeats…let me explain why it might be true in this case. We haven’t heard much about the great Danish monarch, Harald Blåtand Gormson, in this part of the world who once ruled reigned the Nordic and Scandinavian Europe of the late 9th century and is regarded as having united the dissonant tribes of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under a single king into a single kingdom. He also constructed the oldest known bridge in southern Scandinavia, known as the Ravninge Bridge in Ravninge meadows which was quite a feat during the late 9th centuary and many strategic forts connecting his people. We now him more commonly by the linguistically corrupted and anglicized version of Danish word Blåtand as “Bluetooth”, more commonly referred to the Bluetooth wireless technology designed to enable cable-free peer to peer connections between computers, mobile phones, printers, etc. Ironically blå in modern Scandinavic languages literally means black. So if one wants to be historically correct, the translation of Harald Blátönn would rather be Harald Blacktooth than Harald Bluetooth.
The point that this technology is named Bluetooth in these devices is that Bluetooth does the same with communications protocols just like the old monarch did, uniting dissonant peer to peer communicating devices and bridging them together by one universal standard named after this king who did the same with his people. The omnipresent Bluetooth logo on most the supporting devices consists of the Nordic Long-branch runic scripts merged with Germanic runes for this kings initials, H i.e. (Hagall) and B i.e. (Berkanan).
Bluetooth is an open wireless protocol for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks. It was originally conceived as a wireless alternative to RS232 data cables. It can connect several devices, overcoming problems of synchronization. It uses a radio technology called frequency-hopping spread spectrum, which chops up the data being sent and transmits chunks of it on up to 79 frequencies. It can achieve a gross data rate of 1 Mb/s. Bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, telephones, laptops, personal computers, printers, Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, digital cameras, and video game consoles through a secure, globally unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) 2.4 GHz short-range radio frequency bandwidth. The Bluetooth specifications are developed and licensed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) primarily led by the Nordic technological giants in the field of telecommunications which explains the attributed name. It has become the de facto standard communications protocol primarily designed for low power consumption, with a short range (power-class-dependent: 100m, 10m and 1m, but ranges vary in practice; see table below) based on low-cost transceiver microchips in each device. Bluetooth makes it possible for these devices to communicate with each other when they are in range. Because the devices use a radio (broadcast) communications system, they do not have to be in line of sight of each other. This wasn’t the part where I was trying to explain that history repeats.
It was known that Harald Blåtand was overthrown and driven away into hiding as he no longer had control of Norway having to settle back into the border area between Scandinavia and Germany by Sweyn Forkbeard, his illegitimate rebellious son, who led an uprising against his father in 987, and chased him out of the court, forcing him to abandon his kingdom and forcibly deposed him as king. Harald apparently spent the rest of his days hiding with the Slavs in Wendland, within modern-day Germany. Harald was later killed fighting off a rebellion led by Sweyn who became a Viking leader, he became King of Denmark and he was ruler over most of Norway. After a long effort at conquest, and shortly before his death, in 1013 he also became King of England.
A thousand years later the present day “Bluetooth” could soon face a similar fate by the new age Sweyn called “Wi-Fi Direct” that would soon overwhelm the market by late 2010 and could just morph into the existing Wi-Fi devices by a simple firmware update just like another mobile top up service. The only thing that Bluetooth is holding the ground against this uprising is that it consumes low power compared to this new rebel. The Wi-Fi Alliance group is fine tuning this short coming of the “Wi-Fi Direct” and has promised to over throw the incumbent peer to peer communication ruler once and for all and at least send him into hiding if not kill him at the first attack scheduled by late 2010.
Wi-Fi Direct can provide the same short range, ad hoc device connectivity as Bluetooth using the same wireless networking hardware that is already included in virtually every other device, so why bother adding a Bluetooth adapter and dealing with Bluetooth driver updates. Wi-Fi Direct will connect at existing Wi-Fi speeds i.e. up to 250 - 300 mbps. Wi-Fi Direct devices will also be able to broadcast their availability and seek out other Wi-Fi Direct devices. Wi-Fi Direct devices can connect in pairs or in groups. With Wi-Fi Direct only one of the devices needs to be compliant with Wi-Fi Direct to establish the peer-to-peer connection. So, for example, a Wi-Fi Direct-enabled mobile phone could establish a connection with a non-Wi-Fi Direct notebook computer to transfer files between the two. Thus Wi-Fi Direct plans to conquer Bluetooth territory. Wi-Fi Direct can enable the same device connectivity as Bluetooth, but at ranges and speeds equivalent to what users experience with existing Wi-Fi connections.
Wi-Fi Direct solves the problems in the existing ad-hoc system. Essentially, it embeds a software access point, or "soft AP", into any device that wishes to support Direct. The soft AP provides a version of Wi-Fi Protected Setup with its push-button setup. When a device enters the range of the Wi-Fi Direct host, it can connect to it using the existing ad-hoc protocol, and then gather setup information using a Protected Setup-style transfer. Connection and setup is so simplified that the Wi-Fi Direct lobby led by tech sharks like Intel, Apple and Cisco suggests it may replace Bluetooth completely.
Soft AP's can be as simple or as complex as the role requires. A digital picture frame might provide only the most basic services needed to allow digital cameras to connect and upload images. A smart phone that allows data tethering might run a more complex soft AP that adds the ability to bridge to the Internet.
The standard also includes WPA2 security and features to control access within corporate networks and can even be introduced for enterprise networks. One reason Bluetooth couldn’t get in that space was that it has been the subject of security issues like Bluejacking which enables an attacker to connect anonymously with an insecure Bluetooth device and hijack it or compromise its data very easily as it lacked WPA2 like security and features to control access within corporate networks.Bluejacking is possible in a radius of 20 feet. Wi-Fi ranges are much greater which opens the greater possibility of attack but Wi-Fi Direct is prepared and has better security, stands a better chance against such a intruder since it has foreseen and aware of the security concerns as well as the risks of not having them in place. Wi-Fi Direct will include support for WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) and AES encryption for more secure connections and measures are being developed to enable IT admins to exert some control over Wi-Fi Direct networks within their environment like the existing Wi-Fi networks.
Bluetooth's days would be numbered from the time Wi-Fi Direct is launched by late 2010 and the royal skimmerish starts. So its true when people says that history repeats !!!
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