As expected, yesterday marked the official unveiling of Bluetooth Core Specification Version 3.0 + High Speed (HS); the latest iteration of this short-range wireless technology. Higher speeds and better battery life are among the benefits introduced with this revision, according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), thanks to built-in power controls and the use of 802.11 connections for transmitting large files.
Specifically, Bluetooth 3.0 will increase transfer speeds from 3Mbps up to an impressive 24Mbps. This has raised expectations of what the technology will be able to handle once it becomes more widely available - such as wirelessly bulk-synchronizing music libraries between PCs and music players or streaming videos stored on a phone directly to a computer or television set. The new specification is expected to be backwards-compatible and also includes simple pairing as well as automatic security.
Formal adoption of the new specification is just the first step, though. Many manufacturers are just now catching up to the Bluetooth 2.0 standard and products featuring the latest version are not expected to arrive for at least 9 to 12 more months.