WiMedia Me

WiMedia Me
The combination of UWB and Bluetooth technologies has manifested itself into a
categorization known as WiMedia. Although, it seems that a full and final definition
of what WiMedia is remains somewhat elusive; if you Google the definition
you are presented with a myriad of choices which will ultimately leave you unsatisfied.
Many articles refer to several personal-area wireless technologies arguing
that each uniquely affords its own make-up of what WiMedia can do. However, if
you refer to the WiMedia Alliance’s website (www.wimedia.org) they seem to portray
an image of unison between UWB and Bluetooth, supporting a genre of multimedia-
centric applications for the consumer electronics industry. Ironically, it has
taken the consumer a good number of years to understand what Bluetooth supports
(Millward Brown) and now they have to ingest yet another wireless technology.
It is clear that the collective spectrum offered by UWB and Bluetooth will be
seen as WUSB and should afford a more harmonious introduction to the consumer,
as it isn’t a million miles away from USB and hey, you just don’t need to use
the cables!
In this chapter we consider the various building blocks required to create successful
Bluetooth-enabled applications and also provide specific details of the protocol
stack, alongside the diverse range of profiles that accompany the Bluetooth core specification.
The range of profiles is pivotal in realizing a specific application, as it ultimately
defines how that application should manifest itself to the user and how the user
might interact with it. These significant components are first and foremost integral in
developing Bluetooth-enabled wireless applications. However, we will first introduce
the founding application-base that apparently led the way to overcoming Infrared’s
shortcomings. We shall also touch upon the origin of Bluetooth’s inception. This will
not be a tedious parody of “it was King Harald” and incessant references to Denmark
(yawn), but will merely draw your attention to significant changes to the structure of
the SIG (you know, those chess pieces). Furthermore, we will also discuss the radio
architecture, as this uniquely sets apart the technology from other similar 2.4GHzenabled
wireless technologies, with its new AFH scheme proclaiming that it ensures
much more of an amicable coexistence with technologies that already utilize the
crowded spectrum.