Axis Communications, a pioneer in embedding Linux in smart appliances and one of 37 founding members of the BlueTooth Special Interest Group, announced that it has joined three Bluetooth technical working groups and intends to be highly proactive in efforts to advance the development of emerging Bluetooth standards. The three groups are:

• Extended Service Discovery Profile Working Group — The Extended Service Discovery Profiles working group is responsible for specifying device and service discovery mechanisms that will allow Bluetooth devices to recognize each other spontaneously within a personal area network. This technical group will develop Bluetooth profiles that provide mapping of industry protocols — such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) — over Bluetooth.

• Printing Profile Working Group — The Printing Profile Working Group will develop specifications to ensure printers enabled with Bluetooth wireless technology will always inter-operate with client devices, such as mobile phones, PDA's, cameras and PC's. Printing capabilities will range from simple text printing to richer capabilities from more advanced devices.

• PAN Profile Working Group — The PAN Profile working group is defining specifications for dynamic ad-hoc IP-based personal area networks (PAN). The usage model is to secure access to a PAN in a public environment and co-exist with other Bluetooth devices, enabling multi-user collaboration such as white boards, projectors, displays, chatting and file/application sharing.

In May, the Bluetooth Access Point from Axis was unveiled, a new wireless solution that provides broadband access to the Internet and Intranets for a wide range of mobile devices. Supporting both voice and data applications, the Bluetooth Access Point enhances the capabilities and usability of both wireless devices and fixed network resources. In efforts to promote the Bluetooth wireless technology in the development community, Axis has made available for free the first open source Bluetooth driver for Linux. This source code is released under the GPL and is available on the Axis Developer site (www.developer.axis.com).

About Bluetooth

Bluetooth wireless technology is set to revolutionize the personal connectivity market by providing freedom from wired connections. It is a specification for a small-form factor, low-cost radio solution providing links between mobile computers, mobile phones and other portable handheld devices, and connectivity to the Internet. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), comprised of leaders in the telecommunications, computing, and network industries, is driving development of the technology and bringing it to market. The Bluetooth SIG includes promoter companies 3Com, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba, and 1882 Adopter/Associate member companies.

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Axis releases Bluetooth for mobile & embedded Linux
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