Shops and stations could soon be "blipified" if a new device from the mobile-phone maker Ericsson catches on. Those with personal organisers or mobiles will be able to get local information on the move without incurring mobile charges.
Blips could also connect them to the internet at high speeds (460kbps) from cafes, airports or other public places.
Inger Marie Smestad, blip marketing manager at Ericsson, says: "Suppose you are walking past a shop that is closed and see a pair of jeans you like in the window. If the store is blipified, just turn on your personal organiser and you will be able to find out what sizes are in stock and when the store opens. You might even be able to order the jeans online."
Blips, which use the Bluetooth short-range radio standard to communicate with mobile devices up to 10m away, effectively create a wireless local network. They cost $499 and either plug into a web server or can store a lot of web pages themselves.
The main drawback is that they must be used with Bluetooth-enabled mobiles or personal organisers.
Ericsson already sells an R520 Bluetooth mobile and Nokia offers a Bluetooth connectivity kit for its 6210 phone which includes a card for a laptop computer and a replacement mobile battery with built-in Bluetooth.
The blips (or Bluetooth Local Infotainment Points) went on sale earlier this month to coincide with the najor Bluetooth Congress for developers in Monaco.
Not far from the Ericsson stand, Bluetooth was being used to operate a wine- drinking robot by remote control. Magnus Unemyr, of IAR Systems, which sells development kits, believes Bluetooth could become an international standard for remote-control toys.
Bluetooth also has potential as a payment method. Tadlys, an Israeli Bluetooth network developer, showed software from RegiSoft, another Israeli company, that enables discount coupons to be beamed to a personal organiser as a shopper wanders round a shopping mall or supermarket.
At the till the shopper hands over, say, a designer suit, and displays the barcoded-coupon for it on the personal organiser's screen. The shop assistant simply swipes the barcode reader over the organiser and, hey presto, the suit costs less.
In Norway, some Shell customers are using Ericsson Bluetooth mobiles to pay for petrol. Their credit card details are stored in the phone, which saves them having to trek over the forecourt. Some Swedish Railways customers are also trying out Bluetooth to pay for tickets. And a UK train operator is to install Bluetooth access points at a London railway station and on one of its trains.
Access points such as blips can provide free information because they are paid for by the blip owner and could be supported by local advertising or used to speed up payment for purchases.
Professor Nicholas Negroponte, of the Massachusett Institute of Technology, who gave the keynote speech at the Congress, says: "People go to extraordinary lengths to pay for items ordered online, or make micropayments: payment systems have become critical."
However, Scott Linke, wireless marketing manager at Palm, the US personal organiser company, believes "the simplest applications will prove most popular". The company, which is expected to launch a Palm with integrated Bluetooth before the end of the year, believes these will include being able to handwrite longer "chained" SMS text messages on the Palm's screen.
Palm also demonstrated a meeting application, which enables up to seven people to send secret handwritten messages or pictures. So, for example, one colleague could write: "How much longer is this meeting going to go on?" and draw a picture of himself snoozing. Or warn his sales manager not to offer too many concessions.
For personal organisers that don't have built-in Bluetooth, $200 plug-in Bluetooth cards are starting to appear from companies such as Tactel of Sweden.
Bluetooth promises a world without wires. But it is facing competition from 802.11, a rival high-speed local wireless network standard popular in the US. Jeremy Green, principal consultant at research firm Ovum, predicts that: "Bluetooth will develop on a slow burn rather than the big bang the current hype suggests." However, he adds that 2,500 companies are backing the technology which is "too affordable and too useful not to succeed".
Linke believes that many access devices will soon also incorporate 802.11. However, he says that: "For small mobile devices, Bluetooth has the edge because it drains batteries far more slowly."
"You also don't need to be near a Bluetooth access point to use it to communicate peer-to-peer with other Bluetooth devices - to transmit business cards, exchange music files or play multi-user games." Nor do devices need to be in line of sight as they do with infrared.
For the terminally disorganised, this means you can dial numbers on your mobile from a personal organiser without having to find where you put your mobile in your bag.
See www.ericsson.com/blip and www.tactel.se
