Bluetooth SIG Pushes File Transfers

Consumers Can Easily Send and Receive Text, Pictures and Music Between a Wide Array of Devices Using Bluetooth.

An oft-overlooked use of Bluetooth technology is its convenient ability to wirelessly transfer digital content between a variety of devices. Consumers with Bluetooth enabled phones, PC's, PDA's, cameras and media players are able to transfer files such as calendar entries, photos, business cards and songs in a few simple steps.

October has been declared "Bluetooth Transfer Month" by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) in order to highlight the many ways devices can wirelessly send and receive data, text, pictures, music or other files with other Bluetooth enabled devices. Advertisers are quickly realizing the benefits of this use case as more are utilizing Bluetooth technology to send ads, ring tones, and other digital information to consumers.

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"Awareness of Bluetooth technology continues to rise and more consumers are beginning to understand the full functionality of the technology," said Michael Foley, Ph. D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. "As consumers are relying more heavily on their mobile phones, they are turning to Bluetooth technology as a convenient way to send and receive information."

File transfer is a convenient feature of a Bluetooth enabled phone. Consumers can transfer data, such as an address book contact between their mobile phone and laptop or PDA, enabling them to avoid manually inputting the data into each device and ensuring information on all devices is the same and up-to-date. Many people are using their camera phone instead of a digital camera to capture important moments and Bluetooth technology enables these pictures to be sent to mobile phones or computers of friends and family. A few additional scenarios enabled by the transfer experience include exchanging vCards between PDAs and mobile phones, synching a mobile phone with a computer and sending an address-book contact from mobile phone to car.

"Bluetooth functionality is gaining popularity because it is easy to use and allows for simple wireless transfer of data," said Peter Skarzynski, Senior Vice President, Samsung Telecommunications America. "So many consumers already have this power in their hands and might not even know it - many mobile phones with Bluetooth technology allow not only for connection to a headset for hands-free talking, but also for this file transfer capability."

Television network CBS is leveraging file transfer in its new billboards in New York's Grand Central Terminal to beam show clips and trailers to interested people's mobile phones, smart phones and PDAs. Bluetooth enabled billboards also appeared in a Toronto subway as part of a promotion for the Lord of the Rings musical, offering consumers the chance to download ring tones of songs from the show. This application provides an unobtrusive way to reach consumers as users must make their mobile phone discoverable and accept the file before the information is transferred to their mobile phone.

The Bluetooth SIG recently launched the Experience Icon Program to guide and help consumers purchase interoperable products implementing Bluetooth wireless technology. Products containing the Transfer icon contain the Object Push Profile (OPP) and the File Transfer Profile (FTP). When consumers and retailers see the Transfer icon, they will know at a glance that the device in question can wirelessly send and receive data, text, pictures, music or other files with other devices.