By Greg Harris
Bluetooth is the new buzz word in the network world. This is a standard endorsed by dozens of the world's largest computer corporations. It allows two computerised devices near each other to communicate.
That mightn't sound like much. After all, two CB radios have been able to do that for decades. Two mobile phones do this all the time. One of the main uses for mobile phone messages is for school students to send each other notes across a classroom.
But Bluetooth does more than that. It lets all sorts of different devices talk to each other. In one current marketing commercial, a user with a portable laptop computer in a bag walks down a hallway and the computer silently communicates with devices along the way.
Other applications being proposed include small payments. For example, you could walk up to a soft drink dispenser, point your mobile phone at it and get a soft drink delivered to you and charged to your telephone bill.
Bluetooth is seen as allowing a whole new type of communications, the “personal area network”. At present there are “wide area networks” that span the globe or a city and “local area networks” that cover a building or school. A personal area network is something like electronically enabled personal space, linking you to all sorts of paid services.
But the path to electronic personal space is not smooth, and recent reports indicate that Bluetooth can't keep a secret. It is fairly important if anyone is going to buy a Bluetooth-enabled phone or computer that they are confident of its security. Otherwise an unfriendly outsider could take advantage of it to scan all your computer information and run up bills on your phone account.
The problem isn't really surprising. As each new technology that promises security comes along, the strength of that security is tested. When (not if) it fails, the problem gets fixed. After a while, as the number of security failures declines, the technology is generally accepted to have good enough security for whatever it is needed for.
So why is the Bluetooth world in such a fuss? Traditionally the path from idea to development to real world implementation takes years. Today in the fast world of internet e-business (where, according to its supporters, time moves four times as fast as in the rest of the world) there is no time any more.
Today a bright (or apparently bright) idea can go from a scholarly technical journal to a computer company marketing brochure in weeks. In recent years it is common to find Microsoft, Cisco or IBM promising that their products are compatible with things that don't yet exist.
Under current market pressure there is no time left to get things right. Technologies are being marketed before their problems are sorted out. This has long been the tradition of software organisations such as Microsoft. When the same thing is done with standards, however, the effect is likely to kill the technology before it can get established,
So you might have to wait a little longer for that can of soft drink.