20 years young! Happy Birthday Bluetooth This year marks the 20th birthday of “Bluetooth”. Chances are you use this technology every day for your wireless headphones, speakers, controllers for your game console or maybe even for the wireless transferral of fi les. However, there is much more to it! HISTORY In 1994, the Swedish company Ericsson was looking for a more advantageous manner of connecting a mobile phone with a headset without having to use wires. Simultaneously, the solution had to make a wired connection between a computer and peripherals unnecessary. It was the Dutch Jaap Haartsen from Ericsson who developed the technology under the working title Bluetooth, named after the Viking king Harald Blåtand (Blåtand means blue tooth). It was Harald Blåtand who connected Scandinavia and Europe. As they could not fi nd a better name, Bluetooth became the offi cial name, together with a logo that is based on the H and B in runes. But unlike many other inventions, more parties were working on the similar idea at the same time. And as the market would profi t from having one standard, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba united in the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) in 1998. They worked together on this standard, on a fully ‘open’, royalty-free platform. 4- CONTINEW
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