Bluetooth SD Card Coming in February

Posted By: Ed Thursday, January 17, 2002 8:23:20 AM

Palm Inc. will release the Bluetooth SD card in February, according to a report in ZDNet UK. As this is the British version of the site, the article only says the Bluetooth card will be available in the U.K. and doesn't mention any other countries. There has been no formal announcement of the card's release from Palm.

Palm originally unveiled the Bluetooth SD card in June of last year. The card, jointly developed by Palm and Toshiba, is expected to sell for around $150.

Palm had hoped the have the card out by the end of 2001 but it was delayed by the SD Association's slow ratification of the SD input/output standard, which is needed for non-memory SD products like this to work. The SD Assoc. announced its final approval of the SDIO standard last week.

Earlier this week, Palm introduced a beta version of its Bluetooth Software Developer Kit (SDK) intended to help developers to create applications that make use of this wireless standard.

The company intends to release Palm-branded handhelds later this year with Bluetooth built in. Just last week, Palm announced that it had chosen Broadcom to supply Bluetooth chips for its next-generation handhelds.

About Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a low-powered, short-range wireless network technology best suited for mobile devices, as they may not have enough power to support 802.11b signals. It creates a Personal Area Network (PAN) by directly connecting two devices together within a range of approximately 10 to 100 meters depending on power levels. It is also being used as a networking option for mobile devices.

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great!

I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 9:28:48 AM #
I can't wait until they offer that in the US! Then I will be all set to connect to...uh..nothing.

Never mind.

RE: great!
jonecool @ 1/17/2002 10:15:57 AM #
Not to mention how slow it would be if you could connect it to something. The transmission rate of this thing is very slow compared to 802.11b(a). I think I'll stick with my Xircom Springboard and Linksys WAP11.

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 10:21:12 AM #
You could connect a cheap USB Bluetooth dongle to your PC.

RE: great!
sir_tez @ 1/17/2002 10:23:33 AM #
Does anyone know when a Bluetooth enabled phone is coming out? Once I get one of those and a bluetooth enabled Palm all will be right with the world.

---

Sir-Tez

Sir Tez
IT is a rough life

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 10:26:02 AM #
The BlueTooth SD card is about 1/3 the cost of the Xircom 802.11 module and 1/20 the size. I'll take that trade off any day.

802.11 is great for laptops. I draws way, way, WAY too much current for handhelds. BlueTooth is low power. It has a shorter range but I can live with that. The lower cost is good too.

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 10:27:27 AM #
The newest Ericcson phones, the T-38 and the R3580 (or something like that) are bluetooth compatible from the box. They run on Voicestream over here, and if you live in the North East, I've heard of peddlers in New York City and such selling the T-38's for $100 with contract, which is great considering it's like $250-$300 online unlocked.

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 10:49:46 AM #
The Motorola TimePort T270C has bluetooth capability.

RE: great!
Xian @ 1/17/2002 10:51:45 AM #
The Ericsson T28 World phone has a BlueTooth attachment for it. Works rather nicely with my latop and it's Xircom BlueTooth card.

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 11:04:49 AM #
it's the ericsson t-39 or t-68 that has built in bluetooth. i have a t-39 with the hb-10 headset since july and love it. i'm just waiting for AT&T to make the switch to GSM.

i got my gear in france this past summer

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 4:32:02 PM #
I have been using a BT connection between my CLIE and ericsson t39 and now the t68 for a couple of months now. Works like a charm =)

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 5:27:58 PM #
I have had a Bluetoth Ericsson T39 since May and it works great with my laptop equipped with a Xircom Blutoth card. They will probably be avaiable over there as well. The new Nokia 8310 also has Bluetoth.

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 11:11:47 PM #
How have you been using Bluetooth with your Clie? I'm still waiting for the release outside of Japan of the Bluetooth clip-on module (or the InfoStick which has yet to be launched anywhere).

Ben Starr

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/18/2002 12:56:07 AM #
Kind of off-topic question, but how easy is it to use the Bluetooth connection to your phone?

In my experience with infrared and my cell phone, it was kind of annoying. I always had to go through the cell phone menus to put it into "Infrared Mode" and make the IR port active. Is this the case with Bluetooth phones as well?

My ideal situation would be to have my cell phone put away on my belt, and just decide to pull out my PDA and initialize a bluetooth connection and start up a browser program, never touching my cell phone. Is this possible?

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/18/2002 2:26:17 AM #
Has anyone used Bluetooth and their Palm to connect to the Internet via PC with Bluetooth?

ie: Palm + Bluetooth --> Bluetooth + PC ---> Internet

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/18/2002 7:58:15 AM #
Not such an elegant solution if you want to use the SD slot for something else !
Better stick with the BlueM from TDK Systems, it connects on the bottom, uses less power than the Bluetooth SD card and leaves the SD slot free !!
And is on sales now !!

RE: great!
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/18/2002 3:13:53 PM #
I haven't looked too closely at them, but I'd guess that Palm's Bluetooth software solution is much more elegant than the software provided with BlueM or others. Palm's Bluetooth stack provides a pretty decent set of Bluetooth services and integrates closely with Palm OS 4.x

Great? More like Grrrrrr

I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 11:00:04 AM #
What's great? You buy the card, it sticks out of your machine, it snaps off one day....

Oh, you take care and make sure it doesn't snap off, and then you want to read that application in your VFS (dis)abled card and you have to remove this card to stick your memory card in!!!!

Palm are going to flop in a big way if they don't get their head screwed on tight. You would have thought they would bring out a blue tooth card which also had at least 32 Mb if not 64 Mb built it.

Note: If you decide to get the Palm wallet to carry all your SD cards this one will stick out and still get snapped!!!

Dreaming about OS5 ...

What about Handera?

jontz @ 1/17/2002 11:24:47 AM #
ED, have you heard anything about whether or not the Handera 330 will be able to use this card? If not, are there any bluetooth compact flash cards compatable with the H330? Thanks for keeping us so well informed.

RE: What about Handera?
Ed @ 1/17/2002 11:51:11 AM #
As I understand it, the HandEra 330 will need to be updated to OS 4 in order to be able to use this. Last time I talked to the HandEra people, they were working on the update and weren't willing to commit to a release date.

---
News Editor
RE: What about Handera?
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 4:26:11 PM #
I would say ditto with respect to the CF Bluetooth cards. You'll at least need 4.x, Palm's Bluetooth stack, and a driver for the CF card. If this is a priority for you, you might want to e-mail HandEra and let them know.

Sony Infostick

I.M. Anonymous @ 1/17/2002 11:33:44 AM #
This is nice and all, but I've heard little snippets about Sony's Infostick (Bluetooth) in Japan, and I thought we would've seen this in North America by now. Does anyone have any information about this product at all?

RE: Sony Infostick
Ed @ 1/17/2002 11:57:49 AM #
Sorry, the last time I asked my contact at Sony all I got was the standard "We don't talk about unannounced products."

If you are reading this comment and this is the first you've heard of the InfoStick, you should take a look at this article:
www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=1781

---
News Editor

RE: Sony Infostick
mikecane @ 1/17/2002 11:59:01 AM #
Nothing yet.

Our mobile phones are more sophisticated in UK

I.M. Anonymous @ 1/18/2002 6:23:12 AM #
My Uncle recently came over from the US to see me here in England a few months ago and he said that our phones in the UK are years ahead of what they are in the US. If that is the case it may make sense for Palm to iron out any teathing (no pun intended) problems out here before you guys have them.

RE: Our mobile phones are more sophisticated in UK
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/18/2002 3:27:24 PM #
It's the leapfrog effect. The regular phone system in the US was (and is) much better than what you can get in Europe (remember, even a few years ago, waiting weeks for a phone installation?) Consequently, in the US, there was less desire for the wireless systems. The Americans considered it something of a toy. Europeans saw it more as an alternative to existing phone service. More acceptance/usage/desire meant faster innovation. In the next few years things should even out

Why the Bluetooth card is so expensive?
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/20/2002 8:06:16 PM #
$150?
I wish it is much cheaper.

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