Bluetooth “made wires and cable obsolete,” said John Paczkowski in All Things Digital, and a new standard from the Wi-Fi Alliance may do the same to Bluetooth. Wi-Fi Direct, like Bluetooth, connects computers, phones, and myriad other electronic items directly, without a wireless router. But Wi-Fi Direct will be 30 times faster than Bluetooth, have a longer range, and—best of all—“be available as a software upgrade for existing Wi-Fi devices.”
“The Wi-Fi Alliance and everyone else—including myself—are pretty excited about this,” said Jesus Diaz in Gizmodo. The Alliance includes industry giants like Intel, Microsoft, and Apple, and if you couple that with the fact it will work with any Wi-Fi gadget, “expect the technology to become ubiquitous pretty fast.” Come mid-2010, “farewell, Bluetooth.”
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