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treocentral.com >> Stories >> Commentary
Wireless in Seattle


Fri Oct 18, 2002 - 3:44 PM EDT - By James Hromadka

Bluetooth becomes useful

Bluetooth has a lot of potential if the right applications can be written. During the Mobius conference, myself and some other Palm users got the BlueBoard application going and had a realtime whiteboard chat going during one of the breaks. We had an ad hoc network going for that amount of time. Imagine the possiblities when wireless networks are truly everywhere!

Since I have only had the T68i for a few days, I was anxious to try out its Bluetooth functionality. Being able to send and receive SMS messages on the PowerBook during meetings was great. It does not disturb others and does not have the rudeness factor of typing on a phone. Here is a screenshot:

Receiving SMS over Bluetooth

I also tested out SMS from the Treo 90, and it performed admirably. Now I have three different ways to send and receive SMS messages. I love having choices! I'll have all the details on Bluetooth SMS in another article.

Even accessories are beginning to work with more than one device. I brought along Seidio's Emergency Travel Charger, which has connectors for both the Treo and the T68i. Although I can now HotSync over Blutooth, I still brought the Sync & Charge cable because USB HotSync is still faster.

One thing that is interesting about The Palm Bluetooth card is that it defaults to the HotSync name as the Bluetooth name. During Mobius, I found a few others by doing a search via Bluetooth. What would be really nice to have is a Bluetooth application that can allow chat with Palm, Pocket PC, Mac, and Windows Bluetooth users. Then that small network we had would have grown dramatically. Imagine a meeting where you don't need to have Internet access to discreetly interact with other attendees. I anxiously await these future applications.

Saturday night, we headed to downtown Seattle. The others went to Gameworks, a huge gameroom designed by Steven Speilburg, while I took a short cab ride to the Space Needle. The view from the top was tremendous. I appologize for the photos, because my Kodak DC215 does not take very good nighttime photos. I really need a new camera.

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