Bluetooth 2.0

Bluetooth is new technology that is still looking for a place in society and i find that rather amazing.

it is the perfect solution for states that now require hands free operations of cell phones but it seems that many just havent connected the dots yet.

i also think that now that an affordable solution is available, a federal law should be enacted banning cell phone use in cars unless being used in a handsfree mode. there are just too many accidents be attributed to cell phones and this is one of the easiest solutions there is.

now many will whine because a cell phone upgrade will be necessary for bluetooth, but the industry average in the US is a cellphone upgrade every 13 months so we could easily see an all hands free nation in 2 years if we decided that that is what we needed to do.

unfortunately, i dont see that happening

 

That is why I made bluetooth a go/no-go factor in deciding on my latest cellphone. Of course that then dictated getting a laptop with bluetooth, and now I am looking at different bluetooth mice...

 

for home apps or even portable apps, there are too many better options out there that are existing and free. some hate cables but they arent that inconvenient to me.

but for the car, nothing comes close to BT for convenience

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a\";p=\"50181)</div>

Actually, there's no real reason that the multidisplay couldn't interact with the mp3 player you have in your pocket today. Or, more likely, the palm pilot you have in your bookbag that you'd use to stream MP3s.

The limitation is the prius itself. The Navigation and bluetooth headset functions both use a cutout on the left speaker. That's why you hear that "click" when the navigation lady speaks, or when you pick up the phone. It's like a "hard switchover" from one to another.

Bluetooth 1.x is more than able to provide the bandwidth to stream MP3s, but you'd need decoding hardware in the stereo (and for the life of me, I do not know why the prius stereo can't play MP3 cds. This is so obvious toyota!), and a system which could play out to all the speakers. While the cost isn't all that much, it would push the price up even more.

Also, comparing serial/parallel to USB is a bit misleading. Serial/Parallel were around for, oh, almost 15 years or so, perhaps longer. They were good for the day and more than fast enough for usage when they were introduced. It'd be like comparing an Model-T to a Mustang.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a\";p=\"50611)</div>

John -- quite simply, technology is driven by need. There was no need for USB back in the 80s, and quite honestly, computers back then wouldn't have been able to handle it. I can't imagine my old 486/25 handling a USB 1.0 connection over it's ISA bus.

Not only was there no need, but the technology infrastructure to handle USB wasn't in place yet. PCI was in it's infancy in the early 90s. VESA Local Bus was the video standard (ah, VLB), and that was only because with new games and higher resolution video cards that could handle more colors, ISA was awfully slow. The need drove the technology.

Even Serial continued to improve and get faster, in response to consumer need. When USB came out, it gained acceptence largely in part due to the success of the Apple iMac.

BTW -- I notice you didn't mention anything I said about bluetooth and the prius...?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a\";p=\"50618)</div>

Geezus John... can't you debate rationally? Do you have to throw awful GM taglines at me and point to them as some sort of fact? Do better and it's easier to take you seriously.

There was no NEED for USB until devices such as digital cameras and PDAs became widespread. I remember syncing the original Pilot to the computer via Serial, and it was more than fine because the Pilot just didn't have that much memory. Once you got up to the 1MB and 2MB models, that's when people got interested in an alternative.

USB was developed in recognition of the fact that, hey, there were devices out and more coming along that could use that bandwidth. So was firewire. The way you post you make it sound like Serial and Parallel were these new things that were foisted upon an unwitting public.

It's just like I said, you're comparing a very old and good technology of it's day (Serial/Model-T) with something new and much nicer (USB/Mustang). Surely you can see this?

Second -- the prius will see virtually no benefit from bluetooth 2.0. The distance your phone is at is not going to change. The headset profile will not change. The less power bit is a bit misleading, because it will use less power for the more bandwidth than a similar bluetooth 1.x device. The prius audio system would need to be reworked to do any of the cool things that you, or I, would like to do. And it'd have to be redone in such a way that the prius packages without bluetooth wouldn't cost more.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a\";p=\"50664)</div>

Serial & Parallel had quite a list of problems & limitations... the very thing holding back the new types of devices from flurishing.

Remember SCSI? That was the original solution, which USB ended up replacing (and FireWire attempted to do). It failed, being too expensive, too clumsy, and definitely not suitable for notebooks to even have a chance to become ubiquitous. The existance of USB allowed the digital cameras to finally move beyond the professional market. In other words, it was available before consumers even needed it. The same is true of many other external devices too.

NEED is relative. That was the overall point.

The point about the Bluetooth upgrade was that the upcoming Prius models (beyond 2005) will in fact benefit. The new stereo system will have Bluetooth & MP3 support built right into it... because the technology itself was already established.[/b][/quote]

John...

You're so horribly wrong here I don't know where to begin. But begin I shall!

SCSI was never, ever, ever in it's wildest dreams intended to be what USB is. It was designed for drives, internal and external. The fact that SCSI has failed horribly will no doubt horrify Compaq, HP, Dell, IBM, Sun who all use SCSI in high end workstations and servers. Better call them quickly and save them a fortune!

Serial was improved gradually... when it was clear that it needed to be replaced, the USB standard was formed and signed off by industry leaders. It took years for USB to arrive, and we really have Apple to thank for it's arrival. The fact of the matter is, and will continue to be, USB wasn't available until devices which required it were taking off. Anyone sync a 16MB Psion via Serial? I have, and it was the only way to do it, because USB just wasn't available at the time.

Bluetooth and MP3 are already established, and could be in the Prius today. The fact that the stereo doesn't play MP3s is very odd, considering tons of other cars have this capability. Some at half the price of the Prius (Cough, Scion. Cough, Chevy Aveo). And you still have missed several points...

* The stereo just isn't wired this way. To do so would require a substantial reworking of the audio/nav system at this point.
* Bluetooth 2.0 doesn't matter for this. 1.x is perfectly fine.
* Bluetooth 2.0 has just been approved. It will first appear in computers, then consumer devices. I wouldn't expect to see a BT 2.0 enabled phone until at least 2006, perhaps beyond.

While you're right that Bluetooth is the future, BT 2.0 is just an upgrade. The core functionality that you get in 1.x will be the same. I suspect you haven't done as much Bluetooth and/or Serial programming as I have.

 

to say that there was no need for USB is saying that series and parallel was acceptable. well they may have been ok for you, but i thought the technology sucked BIGTIME

i fully believe that if USB had been around earlier, we would have found a way to use it. for one thing, the configuration nightmares with old technology was enough to scare anyone away, not to mention dead slow transfer speed and a very limited number of ports with waaay more overhead usage then they deserved.

i remember my old beater i had that i had to swap out printers, scanners, mice, joysticks etc. because of port conflicts.

no more of that anymore. now i have twice the periphs connected to my computer and dont use the series or parallel ports. no rebooting to recognize components...

yep cant say i was happy back in the day. can say im much happier now. its only been the last year where we now have more horsepower than the average user can use. no more of those 45 minute "do nothing else except" CD burn sessions...

i have a computer that can virus scan, burn a CD and play most 3D intensive games at the same time.

i admit it struggles with Doom 3... but at 55 fps, it still kicks over all my old systems running games with a tenth of the hardware requirement.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA\";p=\"50744)</div>

Dave..

You speak as an end user, and that's fine. But you have to realize, the infrastructure to support USB just hasn't been around that long. And even back in the day with serial, you never had to reboot to recognize components.

And even that aside, 6 years ago you should have been able to burn a CD while doing other things, assuming your IDE setup was right. The fact you had issues was probably due to the OS you were using, nothing more.

Geezus, I'm not defending serial. I'm glad it's dead. Same with Parallel. But comparing USB to Serial/Parallel isn't a fair comparison. The available technology and infrastructure has changed so much.