Signature Q4 2008

Great Moments in Wireless History Scanning the Birth of Bar Codes In the old days, keeping track of Funny Business Plenty of Bluetooth enabled headsets are seen in the movie Tropic Thunder – including one worn by a character who’s talking into a cell phone held at his other ear. California Schemin’ retail inventory required walking from shelf to shelf and manually counting and recording goods. While good inventory management is important in any retail setting, supermarkets carry an especially large number of unique products, and they experience rapid inventory turnover. So it was in 1948 that a supermarket chain executive asked the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, Pa., to develop a way to capture product data at checkout. A student named Bernie Silver took the problem to his teacher, Norman “Joe” Woodland. Woodland and Silver spent the next two years developing the ﬁrst barcode scanning system, which could read a series of dots and dashes representing a product number. Other inventors followed, making improvements on the basic premise of scanning a bar code to read product data. By 1969, work was being done to develop a standardized uniform Bar code scanning is now a ubiquitous part of shopping for consumer goods. After hands-free cell phone laws for drivers went into effect this summer in California, an article about a Los Angeles police ofﬁcer writing citations for hand-held use popped up in a 6 July online edition of Qatar’s The Peninsula. On 2 July, meanwhile – the day after California’s law went into effect – mercurynews.com reported that burglars in San Jose break-ins made off with Bluetooth enabled devices from two stores. Super Gadget product code (UPC), and in 1973 IBM created a viable solution using a 12-digit code. The ﬁrst product scanned using a modern UPC code was a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum, at a grocery store in 1974. From there, bar codes have made their way into virtually every industry. Like other technological devices, bar code scanners have gotten smaller, more sophisticated and, now, wireless. Bluesightings … Have You Seen Blue Lately? O Say Did You See? When Oprah Winfrey talks, millions listen, and now the iconic host has touted a bling Bluetooth enabled headset in the Sept. 2008 issue of O magazine. The Jawbone by Aliph sports styling by Yves Behar, including a gold leather ear loop. In the movie Hancock, Will Smith’s title character wears the ultimate accessory to his slick superhero costume: an LG Bluetooth enabled headset. But like mere mortals, Hancock still has to ﬁnd a signal to make a call. Good thing he can ﬂy. You’ll be spotting Bluetooth wireless devices on TV, in movies, online – everywhere. Send us your favorite Bluesightings at signature@bluetooth.com. Bluetooth Technology by the Numbers | Better Interoperability, More Qualifications 16 * 15 12 9 6 12.7% 2.4% 3 0 .7% 2006 2007 2008 Percentage of products qualiﬁed in 2008 using v2.1 + EDR as of 25 August. * Interoperability failure rates dropped after use of the Proﬁle Tuning Suite became mandatory. 1,861 * Number of product qualiﬁcations in 2008 as of 25 August Bluetooth Special Interest Group | 7 http://www.mercurynews.com

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