Wednesday, April 22, 2009

BT 3.0

Bluetooth 3.0 is out. Well, the specification is. It is a strange puppy: while discovery and pairing is unchanged (i.e. 'miserable'), the specification says there is a High Power mode which the 3.0 devices will negotiate to switch to if they suddenly have a huge file to exchange. And it is actually WiFi. Yes, BT 3.0 specifies that BT 3.0-compliant devices can do a transparent 802.11 ad-hoc network briefly to exchange something. They did need some protocol for that now that files are getting larger and larger, and WiFi is well known.

I am hoping that pretty soon some manufacturer will make an SD card for cameras that includes this new standard much like the EyeFi SD card includes WiFi. EyeFi SD cards seem like normal memory cards for your camera, but have a WiFi radio built in so that the moment you walk into a WiFi network or your own network at home, your pictures get uploaded without you having to haul out a cable and connect your camera to anything. You do have to install special software on your home computer, though. I'd love the same kind of SD card with a BT 3.0 stack on it, so I can use my smartphone to browse my camera wherever I am and upload the pics I want after editing them.