Come 2010 and no longer would you be using Bluetooth for short range file transfer. What’s coming from the WiFi Alliance is a really ground breaking stuff. WiFi Direct a new set of standards will turn your ‘WiFi gadget’ into an access point.
What does this mean?
In simple words you would no longer need a WiFi Router for a peer to peer file transfer. This means days of Bluetooth are numbered. This means very high speed peer to peer transfer (30 times faster than Bluetooth) with in a radius of 300 feet.
How will it work?
Any WiFi Device will be able to upgrade to WiFi Direct by a software upgrade and all new devices will be certified as ‘Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct’.
WiFi Alliance consortium includes Intel, Cisco and Apple and almost all big players.
In a press release Wi-Fi Alliance executive director Edgar Figueroa said
“Wi-Fi Direct represents a leap forward for our industry. Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn’t available”
This is one of the no-brainers on the list. The Bluetooth 3.0 specification will be released this year and devices will start to hit the shelves by 2010. At this point, it's expected that the 3.0 spec will include faster speeds, reportedly transferring files at 480 megabits per second in close proximity and 100 megabits per second at 10 meters. It will also feature an ultra-low-power mode that Gartner predicts will enable new peripherals, sensors, and applications, such as health monitoring. The technology will be backwards compatible, allowing old devices to communicate with new ones, so there's no reason for it not take off in the upcoming years.