By Evan Koblentz
Monday, December 8, 2008
Last week’s analyst and media reports widely citing the launch of Bluetooth 2.2 next summer are incorrect. The next version of the short-range wireless technology will probably be 3.0, Bluetooth Special Interest Group Executive Director Mike Foley said.
“We’re going to come up with a high-speed specification next summer and we’ve been talking about that for a long time. It most likely won’t be 2.2 but the exact name and number isn't finalized… I think a 3.0 is a lot higher probability,” Foley told Wireless Week.
In addition to faster overall speeds, the major update to Bluetooth also will have faster connection times. That may not matter when using a Bluetooth keyboard, but it’s useful for telephony connections, he noted.
Low-power versions of Bluetooth are also on the roadmap.
The group will have one more meeting for 2008 at a Texas Instruments facility near Tel Aviv. There are also several “unplugfests” on the group’s calendar for 2009, including Jan. 9, Feb. 2, June 8 and Oct. 5, as listed on the Bluetooth.org homepage.