Your computer is typically connected by a table to various peripherals such as a mouse, keyboard, printer, monitor, scanner, and more. These cables create a confusing, tangles mess that limits our ability to be mobile.

Additionally, televisions, VCRs, CD players, speakers, telephones and various other electronic devices communicate with each other using a variety of wires, cables, radio signals and infrared light beams, and an even greater variety of connectors, plugs and protocols.

Companies that manufacture electronic devices have realized that the mind boggeling array of cables and connectors involved in their products makes it difficult for even experts to correctly set up a system. Setting up computers and home entertainment systems becomes terrifically complicated when the person buying the equipment has to learn and remember all the details to connect all the parts. In order to make home electronics more user friendly, a better way was needed for all the electronic parts of our life to communicate. That's where Bluetooth comes in.

Who invented Bluetooth?

Bluetooth was the brainchild of Ericsson and has become a standard for a small, inexpensive radio chip that can be plugged into mobile phones as well as computers and their peripherals. A Bluetooth chip replaces cables by taking the information normally carried by the cable, and transmitting it at a special frequency to a receiver Bluetooth chip, which will then give the information received to the computer, phone, or other electronic device.

What can Bluetooth do?

Bluetooth allows any sort of electronic devices to make their own connections without wires, cables or any direct action from a user. Bluetooth is intended to be a standard that works at two levels. First, it provides agreement at the physical level via a radio-frequency standard. Secondly, it also provides agreement at the next level up, where products have to agree on when bits are sent, how many will be sent at a time and how the parties in a conversation can be sure that the message received is the same as the message sent.

Because Bluetooth is wireless, when you travel, you don't have to worry about keeping track of a briefcase full of cables to attach all of your components, and you can design your office without wondering where all the wires will go. It's not going to raise the cost of electronic devices because it's inexpensive. The user of Bluetooth devices doesn't need to do anything special to make them work. The devices find one another and strike up a conversation without any user input at all.

The projected low cost of a Bluetooth chip (around $5), and its low power consumption, means you can literally place one anywhere. Many ideas are coming forward such as Bluetooth chips in freight containers to identify cargo when it arrives or a headset that communicates with a mobile phone in your pocket, or even in the other room. Or, how about your refrigerator communicating with your computer to update your grocery list when you run out of an item?

Who owns Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is not owned by one individual company. Bluetooth is a specification for a wireless technology, developed by members of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). The SIG, founded in February 1998, initially consisted of five companies - Ericsson, Intel, Toshiba, Nokia & IBM. Today more than 1300 companies have joined the SIG to work for an open standard for the Bluetooth concept. By signing a zero cost agreement, companies can join the SIG and qualify for a royalty-free licence to build products based on the Bluetooth technology.

Why did they name it Bluetooth?

Have you been wondering where the name Bluetooth came from? Harald Blåtand (translated as Bluetooth in English) was king of Denmark in the late 900s. He united and controlled Denmark and Norway into a single kingdom then introduced Christianity into Denmark. This unity was inspiration for the name: uniting devices through Bluetooth.