Signature Q3 2008

[R]evolution | By Keith Ferrell | Illustration by Andy Potts | Q3 ’08 The Space Age Digital data has become all but indispensable to our daily lives, and that has created the need for storage media that pack ever larger amounts of data onto smaller, faster devices. We also want convenience, portability and connectivity between devices. Bluetooth technology is leading a wireless revolution in data storage and transfer. Experience More Even as the digital age has made us less reliant on old-fashioned paper archives and metal filing cabinets, which occupied tremendous amounts of physical space, it has created an ever-increasing need for the most valuable digital commodity of all: virtual storage space. Fortunately, such space is more available, more accessible and more economical than ever. It wasn’t always that way. For much of the early history of personal digital tools, the amount of storage space available to any one system was nearly as restricted as the amount of working memory that system offered. Three decades ago, we might well have enjoyed a leisurely dinner while our computers stored a day’s worth of data onto cassettes. A 30-minute “datasette” could store a whopping 200k of data per side. By the early 1980s, as data volumes grew and storage technology advanced, datasettes gave way to 5¼" floppy disks, which, in turn, became obsolete by the mid-’80s when the 3½" disk arrived. Both formats were more convenient, and certainly faster, than datasettes. Topping out at 1.4MB, though, floppy disks didn’t offer what we’d think of today as storage. This became especially evident as programs became increasingly complex. By the early 1990s, it wasn’t unusual for software packages to sprawl over half a dozen install disks or, in the case of graphics-intensive applications, many more. Of course, by then hard disk drives were commonplace, offering almost infinite capacity (remember when a 100MB drive was considered huge?) even as programs swelled in size to consume much of the available space. The arrival and adoption of ZIP drives and, later, CD-ROMs – which, by the mid- to late-1990s had become standard equipment on many personal computers – eliminated the problem of diskette sprawl for software publishers. Soon after, writable and rewritable CDs let users free up their hard drives by storing ever-increasing amounts of material on inexpensive removable media. But as the 21st century dawned, digital music, video, animations and more began vying for ever greater storage space – which was less and less of a problem, as hard drives had long since swelled to hundreds of gigabytes or even terabytes of capacity, while their physical size shrank to the point of portability. Today, people rely increasingly on tiny thumb-drives that provide gigabytes of storage in a device that can dangle on the end of a key chain. Many of us are now so invested in the digital aspects of our lives – for work and play and everything in between – that we require near-constant access to our programs and productions, our photos and videos, our music libraries and e-mail archives. The challenge is one of accessibility rather than capacity. Rising to that challenge of maintaining a constant connection to our data, Bluetooth enabled data-storage devices now let us wirelessly connect and share, store and transfer, back up and restore whatever we have, whatever we need, whatever we create and whatever we receive – wherever we may be. It’s a wondrous revolution, especially to those of us who remember bulky, balky, noisy devices and the tangles of cables and wires that used to tether them … and us … to our desks and desktops. Keith Ferrell is former editor of OMNI magazine and has written extensively on business and technical topics. 32 | SIGnature | Bluetooth.org http://bluetooth.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Signature Q3 2008

Signature Q3 2008 Contents Connect: Growing Markets Inbox: Spread the Word Ask the SIG: The Fast Lane In the News Perspectives: Views From APAC Bluetooth Technology in Retrospect: Headset History Bluetooth Technology in Retrospect: Headset History Bluetooth Technology @ Play: Unplug Your Fun Bluetooth Technology Interactive: Wireless Tourism Checkout: Groovy Gadgets Bluetooth Wireless Explorer: Mind Games Bluetooth Technology 101: Ads You Like It Bluetooth Technology 501: Group Efforts Wacky Apps: What’s NXT? Get in the Game: If The Glove Fits ... Revolution: The Space Age

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