Bluetooth Revealed: The Insider's Guide to an Open Specification for Global Wireless Communications
The Bluetooth specification, which describes a way for electronic  devices to communicate with one another at close range by way of radio signals,  has great potential. The open standard promises to make mobile telephones,  personal organizers, and digital cameras wireless and far easier to use. InBluetooth Revealed, a couple of experts who helped hammer out the  Bluetooth specification (version 1.0B, specifically) take a shot at elaborating  upon the contents of the standards documents. They also share some of their  imaginings about how Bluetooth connectivity might be put to use. The result of  their efforts is a surprisingly readable book that should fit the needs of  hardware and software developers who plan to support the Bluetooth platform.After some discussion of wireless devices and the generalities of the Bluetooth  specification, the authors approach their subject in progressively greater  detail, defining terms and referring to conceptual diagrams as they go.  Emphasizing protocols that are unique to Bluetooth communication (such as  RFCOMM, which allows applications to treat a radio link just like a hard-wired  serial port), the authors show exactly how Bluetooth devices arrange themselves  into wireless networks. Then, they explain how these networked devices exchange  commands, files, and multimedia streams. They give fair hearing to the  specification's shortcomings, too; noting, for example, that it's good for  sharing voice signals among devices, but not so good for sharing high-quality  music signals.The authors ofBluetooth Revealedwould be the first to concede that the  Bluetooth standard is evolving, and certainly will change as more manufacturers  adopt and supplement it. Regardless, this book is a valuable statement of the  Bluetooth vision, straight from a couple of its creators.--David WallTopics covered:The Bluetooth wireless networking specification (version  1.0B) and its component parts, including the radio, baseband, link-controller,  and link-manager layers. Special coverage goes to the Logical Link Control and  Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP), the Host Controller Interface (HCI), RFCOMM serial  ports, and the Service Discovery Protocol. Bluetooth futures appear here, too.