Nokia's Wibree joins Bluetooth
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(InfoWorld) - Ultra-low power is being added to the features of short-range Bluetooth technology. The ultra low-power Wibree technology developed by Nokia Corp. will become part of the Bluetooth specification under an agreement reached by the Wibree Forum and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the Finnish mobile phone maker said Tuesday. Bluetooth has been used mostly to connect larger devices such as headsets, keyboards and mouses to stereos and PCs and with the help of Wibree, the technology will be able to connect much smaller button-cell battery-powered devices, like watches or sensors attached to a user's body. Wibree uses the same 2.4GHz frequency as Bluetooth. "We look at this as an addition to the Bluetooth family of specifications, enabling a new class of devices that Bluetooth isn't really suitable for today," said Michael Foley, executive director of Bluetooth SIG. In October 2006, Nokia's research arm announced the development of Wibree and establishment of an industry forum, including Broadcom Corp. and STMicroelectronics NV, to define a specification. But after forming, the companies -- many of them members of Bluetooth SIG -- favored having ultra low-power devices supported in Bluetooth, according to Harri Tulimaa, head of Nokia Technology Out-Licensing. "They didn't want to complete an entirely new technology," he said. The goal is to develop specifications for two types of ultra low-cost implementations: a single-mode implementation for watches, sensors and other tiny devices to communicate with each other; and a dual-mode implementation to communicate with both single-mode and traditional Bluetooth devices. The core specification for ultra low-power technology is already well advanced, according to Tulimaa. "We've started prototype interoperability testing between three companies and have transmitted packets over the air." Ultra low-power Bluetooth will have a range up to 10 meters, similar to the Bluetooth Class 2 specification, which requires more energy. A button-cell battery powered device, equipped with ultra low-power Bluetooth technology, will be designed to have an average operating life of one year, according to Tulimaa. It can transmit data at a speed up to 1M bps (bit per second) High-power Bluetooth Class 3 has a range up to 100 meters. Foley doesn't view low-power Bluetooth as a competitor to Near Field Communications (NFC), another short-range wireless technology. NFC is designed primarily to help people make contactless transactions, he said. Bluetooth SIG expects to finalize ultra low-power Bluetooth specifications in the first half of 2008, with the first products, mostly likely single-mode devices, to hit the market in the second half of the year.
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Singalong with all the pretty, pretty handsets Nokia's much-anticipated product launch is today, and the schedule confirms the expected music store as well as a couple of new handsets and the first device compatible with the newly-revamped N-Gage platform.â¦
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Company unveils 'WidSets' for Java-enabled phones.
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Nokia plans to add WiMax connectivity to its N-series Internet tablet next year.
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Nokia said Tuesday its Wibree technology is becoming part of the Bluetooth standard, meaning the ultra low power technology will likely see much broader adoption as a result.
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The popular wireless technology known as Bluetooth could get a lot faster next year by taking advantage of Wi-Fi technology already built into many gadgets.
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The Nokia 9500 Communicator has been granted the IEEE 802-11b and WPA (Wireless Protected Access) certifications by the Wi-Fi Alliance.
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Wibree complementary to Bluetooth, apparently Nokia today invited hardware and software makers to join it and implement a new wireless data transfer technology designed to operate over very short distances. Yet the Finnish phone giant insisted the technology, dubbed Wibree, is complementary to Bluetooth.â¦
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802.11 to speed Bluetooth transmissions MWC The organisation behind Bluetooth will tomorrow go public on its plan to borrow bandwidth from Wi-Fi, allowing the device-to-device wireless connection technology to offer faster data transfers when it needs to.â¦
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Mobile handset firm Nokia's  ultra-low-power short-range wireless technology is to be  developed as a new version of Bluetooth to connect devices such  as watches and heart monitors, the company said on Tuesday.
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Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world's largest  cellphone maker, has started its first tests of a technology  that allows users to roam seamlessly between phone networks and  local wireless hotspots such as Wi-Fi.
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Nokia, the world's biggest handset  maker, unveiled on Wednesday a miniature version of its  equivalent of the Swiss Army knife it hopes will lure women and  less-techie business people.
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One standard not two Nokia launched its Wibree personal area network technology in October 2006 as an extension to Bluetooth. Today, Wibree became Bluetooth. The Nokia-led Wibree Forum is to merge with the Bluetooth SIG, the body that oversees the wireless standard.â¦
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Nokia, the world's biggest handset maker, unveiled on Wednesday a miniature version of its equivalent of the Swiss Army knife it hopes will lure women and less-techie business people.
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The consortium behind the Bluetooth wireless standard announced Tuesday that Nokia Corp., the world's largest maker of cell phones, is contributing a technology that promises to bring the wireless connections to devices that are too small for regular Bluetooth chips.
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(InfoWorld) - Web 2.0 is coming to mobile phones, according to Nokia, which has launched a service that allows Java-enabled phone users to choose widgets, or small applications, that can be displayed on their phones. WidSets, introduced on Tuesday, is a free offering that users can set up on theÂ WidSets Web site. On the site, customers can choose from many different widgets that will be displayed on their phones. Widgets usually reside on a desktop and receive information, such as data delivered via RSS (Really Simple Syndication). For example, a Google News widget can appear as a small icon, and when users click on the icon, they can see the latest headlines that appear on the Google News Web site. Widgets are considered Web 2.0 applications because they offer an interactive and customizable service different from more static Web sites. After a new user signs up, the WidSets site sends an application via text message to the user's phone. Users must run the WidSets application and stay connected to the Internet to see the widgets and to allow the widgets to be updated with new content. The WidSets Web site is designed to support community input so users can browse for useful widgets based on community rankings. The service is free for phone users, although they'll pay associated costs to their mobile operators for data download. For now, Nokia doesn't have a way to make money from the offering but in the future the service could support advertising or Nokia could sell premium content, said Tom Henriksson, director of Nokia's emerging business unit. WidSets isn't the first widget offering for mobile phones. Opera Software ASA supports widgets on its mobile browsers. Henriksson praised the Opera offering as a great option but said that WidSets is designed to make using widgets on mobile phones easy. Nokia has increasingly begun offering different types of services like this one that could compete with content services from operators. But Henriksson says that offerings like WidSets benefit everyone in the market. "We think these help data services in general take off. Then everybody wins," he said.
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Cingular Wireless plans to sell a new BlackBerry-like device from Nokia Corp. for as low as $150, perhaps the most aggressive entry yet in an increasingly crowded market of devices with typewriter keypads for wireless e-mail and text messaging.