Why does Max have a blue tooth?

Just when you think you have a handle on all the technical jargon it seems that a bevy of new words and acronyms surface. Time was when these terms were relegated to the pocket protector set. Today, newspaper and TV ads, signs in stores and casual conversations at the coffee shop can be peppered with strange words. This week we will look into three terms that seem to come up often. They are: WiFi, WiMax and Bluetooth®.

Let’s start with WiFi, a system that transmits data through the air over short distances to and from a computer or other digital device using radio waves. It essentially works the same way that your wireless home phone works. In the case of the phone, there is a base station that plugs into your “Ma Bell” phone line that has a small low power transmitter/receiver that sends and receives the phone conversation to and from the phone handset. Similarly, WiFi allows you to use your computer on the Internet without hard wiring it to the computer modem. The signals can travel only short distances so you can’t be more than about 200 ft. or so from the WiFi transmitter. In most cities and towns there a several WiFi spots including the coffee shops, libraries and gas stations. With a WiFi enabled computer or other device you can sip your coffee and email your kids at the same time. Some WiFi services are free; others require a subscription or hourly fee. With WiFi several people share the same high speed Internet connection. Many people have home systems set up, the grist for a future column.

WiMax is an emerging technology that offers the same features as WiFi, but has a much wider coverage area. Unlike WiFi, transmitters that have coverage over an area of about 200 ft radius, WiMax signals can cover several square miles. This technology promises to be a real boon to wireless computer use. While not truly WiMax, several companies like Verizon and Sprint offer a wireless service for your lap top or other digital device that provides fast connection to the Internet but these speeds are only about one third to one half the speeds possible with WiFi and WiMax. Also many have "dead spots" in coverage.

The more colorful term Bluetooth® refers to wirelessly connecting digital devices over very short distances, only a few feet or so. The most popular are the “Borg-like” wireless head phones that are increasingly found hanging from the ears of people walking on downtown streets seemingly talking to themselves. In the olden days we thought these people were just “a few fries short of a happy meal,” now we spy the little ear piece and we know they are just “cool.”

You can find Bluetooth® enabled devices in cameras, allowing you to wirelessly connect to printers, in cars connected to mobile phones, and in a host of other applications where wires just get in the way.

For sure as we to continue on this digital highway more and more devices will be released from the tether of wires and rely on these and other wireless technologies.