Bluetooth pairs with cake for 10th birthday

Everyone raise your glasses for a toast, will you? The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (better known as the Bluetooth SIG to its pals) is throwing itself a little party celebrating ten years since its inception. It's been one heck of a decade, too, considering that the SIG started with just five members and has since grown to over 10,000; in that same span, wireless headsets have become all but ubiquitous, the standard has come to countless products covering hundreds of product categories, and a grand total of 1.5 billion-plus devices have shipped with that now-famous stylized "B" emblazoned somewhere on their shell. So just how does a special interest group shake its moneymaker on such a momentous occasion? A spat of playful Bluejacking, perhaps? Nah, nothing that saucy -- just a private party for SIG members at CES. Here's to another ten, Bluetooth.

[ManekiNeko @ Jan 9th 2008 12:00AM]

The first person to make a Portal joke gets kicked in the teeth.

Also, I can't say as I've had much experience with BlueTooth, past my Wiimote. Seems to work pretty well, though, so I've got no complaints!

[strider_mt2k @ Jan 9th 2008 12:08AM]

Good thing I read that.

I just brushed!

[Otsego_Undead @ Jan 9th 2008 12:36AM]

aww common, its BEGGING at me!

[Darrell @ Jan 9th 2008 12:02AM]

I can easily say that Bluetooth made my life a lot easier! Here's to another 10... hell, 100 years!

[musammil @ Jan 10th 2008 3:50AM]

please give me a password

[John @ Jan 9th 2008 12:44AM]

Here's to an even BETTER standard being created.

I'm not saying Bluetooth is in any way outdated, but we should still keep trying to outdo ourselves.

[roflercopterer @ Jan 9th 2008 12:52AM]

Why does the title say cake?

I read the whole article hoping there would be mention of cake but there was none to be had.

That's not how winners play the game engadget. When you say cake, there better be cake.

[Devin @ Jan 11th 2008 3:35AM]

The cake was a lie.

(Sorry, I had to)

[roflercopterer @ Jan 9th 2008 12:59AM]

Thanks for ruining my allusion there bud.

[Reader @ Jan 9th 2008 1:49AM]

You have to set sv_cheats to 1 and noclip to find the cake in the article :D

Though I played the xbox version, so I never got to get the cake.

[AJ in the East Bay @ Jan 9th 2008 2:49AM]

I thought it went "The cake IS a lie!" and not "was".

[Ed @ Jan 9th 2008 1:41AM]

I actually remember when bluetooth was coming out and had a booth at Comdex. I was blown away at the time. Of course back then, they were pushing it as a competitor to 802.11b which it never did become one.

Overall, I would say bluetooth has performed better then any of the 802.11 wireless standards. At least in ease of use, reliability, and setup. I always found that it was like kicking water up hill to configure 2 APs in bridge mode AND get them to work with WEP. At least in the early years.

[snife @ Jan 9th 2008 2:32AM]

Bluetooth better than 802.11abgn? oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Bluetooth is a nightmare, i've worked in technical support before and due to numerous different bluetooth stacks in existance which support different services, bluetooth causes a lot of problems for anyone that wants to use it. The problem is in your comparison - a fairer comparison would be connecting to a wireless network rather than setting one up, I can set up a secured (with bluetooth is not) wireless network in my sleep but its not something thats easily done by novices - I do admit that.

Don't get me wrong, I have bluetooth headphones on A2DP (the support for which is very variable) and I have a Wii (which is the best implementation of bluetooth i've seen) but bluetooth is not a good standard. Its going to get its ass kicked by wireless USB very very soon.

[Ed @ Jan 9th 2008 3:01AM]

I merely said that bluetooth has performed better with ease of use, reliability, and setup with respect to 802.11x

I did not say it was perfect, it most certainly is not. 802.11x can do things bluetooth cannot do at all, since bluetooth was never developed for it. Early on, there was a small push for wireless networking with bluetooth, but it never made any headway. This was more then 10 years ago too by the way. That Comdex booth was in 96' if I remember right.

However, 802.11x has been more of a nightmare for me, then bluetooth ever was. Even with the different bluetooth stacks, it seemed to be:

1) Easier to use. A bluetooth device is pretty straightforward. Even most Darwin award recipients can figure it out.
2) Reliability. Once up and running, bluetooth tends to stay up and running.
3) Setup. With the different stacks, this tended to make it harder I will grant you that, but it was overall easier than 802.11x

Furthermore, to breakdown 802.11x the same way:

1) Ease of use. Does not really apply actually, since once configured there is no real reason to hit the interface again at all. Moving from one AP to another is really more about setup.
2) Reliability. ESPECIALLY in the beginning, APs had to reset, factory-reset, power-cycled, etc. quite often. More often then not, it was hard to tell if it was a wireless malfunction, or a network malfunction since broken wireless could seem to be working.
3) Setup. This WAS like kicking water uphill for the first few years. You could configure 2 APs exactly the same, and still not ping across it. No rhyme or reason to it, just would not work. Factory-reset both units and apply the same configurations... and they start pinging. 5 Wireless Modes? AP Client, AP "server", Bridge, Multi-Point Bridge, Repeater. For a novice it was like trying to read the plans to the death star. For professionals, it made things hell since many units did not support them all, and did not support what they had very well either.

I still stand by my own personal claim, that bluetooth has given me less headaches then 802.11x. I have found more satisfaction and value for the money I spent on my bluetooth devices, then I ever did with 802.11x.

[giedrys @ Jan 9th 2008 1:59AM]

10 years old, still pretty weak technology, or should i say bad hardware implementation. Whatever it is, we're in 2008 and we still don't have impeccable BT headset on the market, not even close. Pathetic.

[Bernhard @ Jan 9th 2008 7:37AM]

Can you think of any other technology that comes close to bluetooth in terms of headset implementation other than adding a strange looking adapter to the port of your phone? A wi-fi headset does not exist by the way.

[Harrison @ Jan 9th 2008 8:14AM]

bluetooth saves my life everyday!

In one way or another..

Cheers, but knowing how tech comes and goes obsolete next year well be toasting to Bluetooth HD
:D

[Jason White @ Jan 9th 2008 10:16AM]

All these years, all those devices, all that time.... and still the vista bluetooth stack is HORRIBLE! The Widdcomm stack has more features but it still doesn't have the level of integration that I had hoped for. Call me an Apple fanboii if you want, but I commend Apple for their implementation of bluetooth.

[amberrae @ Feb 8th 2008 2:30PM]

I have recently gotten a Jawbone Bluetooth Headset for my first purchase and I love it! I have never used a headset before, but now with new hands-free laws, I thought I would try one out. I bought it from www.gammoth.com and they have so many headsets to choose from. I'm thankful for Bluetooth technology!