Wireless USB and Bluetooth
As the release date for Wireless USB draws ever closer, discussion is heating up around the emerging standard. In particular, there has been a lot of debate concerning the pros and cons of Bluetooth versus Wireless USB. Both of these standards offer particular benefits as well as particular challenges, and it appears that both standards will be competing with each other for the same manufacturer and consumer base. Let’s examine how the lines are being drawn.
Bluetooth came onto the wireless scene in May of 1999. Initially developed by Ericsson, it was quickly adopted by such companies as Microsoft, Apple, Motorola, and Toshiba. It has since become a major standard for wireless device connectivity. Using wide-band, low-power radio waves to transmit data over short distances, Bluetooth has been used for wireless keyboards, mice, and other peripherals, cellular phones, PDAs, MP3 players, and some digital cameras. Concerning Bluetooth’s popularity with cell phone manufacturers in particular, one of the benefits of Bluetooth is that it has a very low power consumption rate, especially when it comes to audio transmission. This has made Bluetooth the technology of choice for cell phone manufacturers looking to pair wireless headsets to their phones.
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