Tell Me About BlueTooth Please

Tell me about Bluetooth. I have it on my laptop (Dell latitude d620). I see the blue glowing emblem in the corner and while I am sure it is a revolutionary feature that will void all technology before it, I am afraid I cant quite figure out how to exploit it or utilize it.

What does it do?

What would it be handy for?

If it proves of no use, will it turn off with out voiding wireless Internet?

Thankyou for your time.

By the way, though this does not help me out much I thought this was interesting:

Why is it called Bluetooth?
Harald Bluetooth was king of Denmark in the late 900s. He managed to unite Denmark and part of Norway into a single kingdom then introduced Christianity into Denmark. He left a large monument, the Jelling rune stone, in memory of his parents. He was killed in 986 during a battle with his son, Svend Forkbeard. Choosing this name for the standard indicates how important companies from the Nordic region (nations including Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) are to the communications industry, even if it says little about the way the technology works.

 

Bluetooth is a short-range networking standard. It has several uses in computers: you can use BT mouse, headphones, keyboard, printer, headset probably other things as well. If you want to turn it off, it will not affect the wireless internet. They are separate things. People like BT mice because it makes for a more streamlined look; no dongle hanging off the laptop. Microsoft had big plans for BT, but they kind of fell through.

BTW, neat factoid.

 

hahaha thats a funny paragraph. ok basically if you have a bluetooth enabled device such as a cellular phone, keyboard, mouse, headset, etc... you can "pair" the two devices so that they work with eachother. via bluetooth you can listen to your computer's audio by the headset (google up the motorola h700) with keyboard and mouse its better than wireless, its bluetooth, so from 30 yards, 100 feet approximately depending on the type of bluetooth you have you can use these devices. also my car has bluetooth, so i can hookup a phone to my car and hear the call through my car's 10 bose speakers... bluetooth is an amazing device. for a laptop functions include pair with phone (data transfer: contacts, docs, mp3's, ringtones) keyboard, mouse, and headset to speak and hear from.

 

Here is a good read about Bluetooth, a bit long but it sure gives you a good idea what the uses of it are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth

 

That article says bluethooth is named for the kings dipolomatic skills, I like that version.

 

Probably the shortest answer is to think of it as a wireless version of USB.

 

It is very useful, but I don't see it getting much more useful then it is now. With the new WiFi then I think that bluetooth will die off, thats just my personal opinion so don't go betting anything important on it. I do use bluetooth for alot of things myself though(mouse, phone and such).

 

I use it for headset, travel mouse and my PocketPC. Like TedJ said, it's like the wireless version of USB. The only problem people have with it sometimes is when they have a lot of appliances around the house on full use that share almost the same frequency as BT, like wireless phones for example.

 

Bluetooth was originally intended as a cable replacement technology. Thats why its generally a short range signal. The devolopers wanted to eliminate excess cables.