Bluetooth Revealed: The Insiders Guide to an Open Specification for Global Wireless Communications Book

The Bluetooth specification, which describes a way for electronic devices to communicate with one another at close range by means of radio signals, has great potential. The open standard promises to make mobile phones, personal organisers, and digital cameras wireless and far easier to use. In Bluetooth Revealed, a couple of experts who helped hammer out the Bluetooth specification (version 1.0B, specifically) take a shot at elaborating upon what's in the standards documents. They also share some of their imaginings about how Bluetooth connectivity might be put to use. The result of their efforts is a surprisingly readable book that should fit the needs of hardware and software developers planning to support the Bluetooth platform. After some discussion of wireless devices and the generalities of the Bluetooth specification, the authors approach their subject in progressively greater detail, defining terms and referring to conceptual diagrams as they go. Emphasizing protocols that are unique to Bluetooth communication (such as RFCOMM, which allows applications to treat a radio link exactly like a hard-wired serial port), the authors show exactly how Bluetooth devices arrange themselves into wireless networks. They then explain how the networked devices exchange commands, files, and multimedia streams. They give fair hearing to the specification's shortcomings too, noting for example that it's okay for sharing voice signals among devices but not so good for sharing high-quality music signals. The authors of Bluetooth Revealed would be the first to concede that the Bluetooth standard is evolving, and will certainly change faster as more manufacturers adopt and supplement it. Regardless, this book is a valuable statement of the Bluetooth vision, straight from a couple of its creators. --David WallRead More