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Ron Hale-Evans
rwhe@ludism.org
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I mentioned in my last Friday Five that I'd had a particularly good day at work. I don't think I've written elsewhere yet about what I do for a living.
I was hired in May as a technical writer for Open Interface North America. I spend a lot of my time documenting the internals of our embedded Bluetooth protocol stack in Doxygen. I consider the iterative process of my documentation and interaction with the developers to be a distributed form of literate programming -- and often not so distributed, as sometimes my documentation efforts consist of editing detailed comments to the code that were written by the devs themselves.
After working on Bluetooth software for about six months now, I had a small-scale epiphany yesterday about the difference between Bluetooth technology and WiFi.
Bluetooth technology has received some bad press in comparison with WiFi in the ongoing "unwiring" revolution, but advocates of Bluetooth technology often point out that Bluetooth devices have a different niche from WiFi. Bluetooth devices were originally meant as a form of cable replacement -- that is, you can in theory replace the current tangle of cables under your desk by connecting your computers and peripherals with Bluetooth dongles. By contrast, WiFi is primarily a means of getting connected to the Internet.
In my opinion, this distinction is accurate as far as it goes, but does not go far enough. I would say instead that the main distinction between Bluetooth technology and WiFi is locality. When using a Bluetooth device, you're in a sort of neighbourhood -- but with WiFi your neighbours' PDAs are just more sites on the Internet. This insight came to me while reading a dispatch from a cow-orker who is presently in Japan, Kaz Morishita.
Kaz started his message by linking to an article from Wired News that has been circulating through the blogosphere lately: "Feel Free to Jack Into My IPod". From Kaz's perspective (and mine), one interesting thing about the article is the brief mention that sharing music while strolling or jogging would be facilitated by the use of Bluetooth connections. (Another article that has been making the rounds of the blogosphere, "Finally, a Useful Bluetooth Device", mentions an upcoming Bluetooth adapter for the iPod from XtremeMac and Infinite Range. What the article doesn't tell you is that my company, OINA, wrote the software used by the hardware mentioned.)
Kaz went on to describe the current Japanese phenomenon of rental-box stores, and concluded his missive with a miniature science fiction story about one possible future for Bluetooth technology, based on talks with Japanese business contacts:
I get on a train to commute to my work. I spend 40 minutes every morning on this train. There are probably about 150 people right around me in this car. I search for Bluetooth devices around me using my Zaurus. I find seven Bluetooth devices, of which three of them are running PAN profile and an http server. I connect to them, one at a time. The first guy is probably a young jazz piano player. He has a few mp3 files that I can download and listen to. I really like his version of Blue Funk. The next one had tons of photos. She likes water activities. There are many underwater pictures with interesting and colorful fish. She is cute. She is standing about 15 feet away, looking at flowing scenary outside. I wish I could talk to her. Oh great, she's got her email address on the page. I send her an email. I guess I don't get any replies, but it's worth trying anyway. The third guy is selling his car. It is a quite nice 1969 Toyota Land Cruiser. I might call him up this weekend and check it out. I find another Bluetooth device. It's not running an http server. It's an iPod broadcasting audio over Bluetooth. I listen to the music for a while. It's time I get off of the train. I check my http server's access log on Zaurus. It looks like five people downloaded some mp3 files off of my Zaurus today. I start walking towards my office.
It's not necessarily as sfnal as all that. Based on my understanding of the state of the Bluetooth art, this scenario might be only one or two years away, especially if people (a) start buying devices like the XtremeMac iPod adapter (quite likely), and (b) start using PAN (the Bluetooth Personal Area Network profile) more (somewhat less likely). Judging from current first-person accounts of bluejacking (against which, I feel compelled to add, there are some easy security measures one can take), the density of Bluetooth devices in this story is already common in large cities, such as Tokyo and London -- but of course the prevalence of Bluetooth streaming audio and web servers is not!
Kaz's little story nicely illustrates Howard Rheingold's concept of smart mobs, from his book of the same title (the first book I bought after being hired by OINA, incidentally). It also illustrates the concept of locality I was talking about. The service discovery done by the narrator and the ad hoc local network he forms with his virtual acquaintances on the subway would be hard to do with WiFi (to the best of my knowledge), but these capabilities are built into virtually all Bluetooth devices.
DISCLAIMER: As I mentioned several times, I am employed by a Bluetooth software development company. This article is not meant as FUD. If anything I have said is factually inaccurate, I apologise. My direct experience with WiFi technology is unfortunately somewhat limited at the moment.
If you have any comments, feel free to email me.
Entered 08:35 [/comp] permalink
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Email from a cow-orker in Japan, Kaz Morishita: "Rental-box" stores are popping up at various places in Japan. I found this recent trend in Japan interesting. "Rental-box" stores usually have large shelves divided into many square units that are about 1.5' by 1.5'. Any person can rent one square unit for ~$8/mo. to sell whatever s/he wants. Such stores are popping up partially because of empty store spaces due to the bad economy. Typical items sold include hand-made clothes, hand-made candles/soaps, original printed T-shirts, original paintings, photos, CDRs containing original videos, music, etc. Links (in Japanese): one, two, three. (My wife Marty points out that these stores have a partial USan counterpart in the craft mall.) |
Entered 08:02 [/culture] permalink
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