Saturday, October 17, 2009

Will Wi-Fi Direct finally kill Bluetooth? - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

A timely reality check

A decade later, the dream is only partially fulfilled. True, we've got some nice Bluetooth mice and keyboards, and, of course, there are those aesthetically unrepentant among us who dare to leave the house with Bluetooth earpieces appended to their heads. But for wider uses, Bluetooth suffers two critical flaws—it's not user-friendly, and with its slow transfer rate and a range of just a few hundred feet, it isn't powerful enough to replace most of the cables we use today, especially in that den of wires, the modern home-theater setup. We need something better: a wireless standard that is flexible enough to carry audio, video, and all other data in real time, but that is also extremely simple to use.

The obvious candidate for such a standard is Wi-Fi.

Will Wi-Fi Direct finally kill Bluetooth? - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

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