THE WORLD'S LARGEST ELECTRONICS FIRMS HAVE DECIDED TO USE BLUETOOTH WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY TO SEND HIGH QUALITY VIDEO BETWEEN DEVICES IN THE HOME, TWO INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS SAID ON TUESDAY ACCORDING TO REUTERS. THE DECISION IS EXPECTED TO DETERMINE HOW HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF TELEVISIONS, VIDEO RECORDERS AND PERSONAL COMPUTERS WILL BE CONNECTED WITHOUT WIRES BY THE TURN OF THE DECADE. UNTIL NOW, THE GLOBAL ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY HAS BEEN STRUGGLING TO CHOOSE A SINGLE WIRELESS CONNECTION THAT IS FAST ENOUGH TO CONNECT A NEW GENERATION OF DIGITAL DEVICES. THE TWO ASSOCIATIONS, WHICH CONTAIN MEMBERS LIKE TECH HEAVYWEIGHTS INTEL, NOKIA AND MICROSOFT, SAID THEY WILL COOPERATE TO HAVE BLUETOOTH-ENABLED DEVICES BY 2008 THAT CAN SEND AND RECEIVE MULTIMEDIA AT SPEEDS THAT ARE MORE THAN 100 TIMES FASTER THAN CURRENT BLUETOOTH. 'THIS NEW VERSION OF BLUETOOTH TECHNOLOGY WILL MEET THE HIGH-SPEED DEMANDS OF SYNCHRONISING AND TRANSFERRING LARGE AMOUNTS OF DATA AS WELL AS ENABLING HIGH QUALITY VIDEO AND AUDIO APPLICATIONS FOR PORTABLE DEVICES, MULTI-MEDIA PROJECTORS AND TELEVISION SETS,' THE BLUETOOTH SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (BLUETOOTH SIG) SAID IN A STATEMENT. BLUETOOTH IS A SHORT-RANGE RADIO TECHNOLOGY WHICH IS CURRENTLY MOSTLY USED TO CONNECT CELL PHONES TO SEPARATE DEVICES LIKE HEADSETS, PRINTERS OR MICROPHONES. IT IS INCREASINGLY USED ALSO BY THE CAR INDUSTRY. BLUETOOTH, INVENTED BY SWEDISH TELECOMS GROUP ERICSSON IN THE 1990S,, IS MORE THAN JUST A WIRELESS CONNECTION. IT ALSO CONTAINS SECURITY FEATURES AND PROTOCOLS TO CONNECT MANY DIFFERENT DEVICES IN A SMALL AREA. THIS IS A KEY DIFFERENCE WITH SIMPLER WI-FI SHORT-RANGE WIRELESS INTERNET CONNECTIONS. --MORE 21 43 LOCAL TIME 18 43 GMT
