News

Blame Bluetooth for making you so busy; and other tall tales

"Researchers have found" reports South Africa's Times, "that typical middle-class city dwellers now have so many time-saving gadgets that they can cram into 24 hours the same quantity of tasks that a decade ago would have taken 31 hours to complete."

A summary of the weekend's Bluetooth news would suggest that not much happened.  Apart from the Times (SA) agog at the way a driver in a car uses a Bluetooth earpiece to hold a conference call while keeping an ear on the radio and checking the sat nav, what else was there?

A press release from Pioneer, "beyond navigation," was pretty much it, apparently.

"Pioneer’s commitment to providing consumers with the ultimate in-car entertainment experience has led to three new product offerings that go beyond the typical navigation system,"

The trick, apparently, is to make it easy for users to integrate their own iPods and other devices with the car nav:

The Pioneer AVIC-F700BT, AVIC-F900BT and Premier branded AVIC-F90BT combine a multitude of functional entertainment capabilities with advanced navigation features that fit the lifestyle of today’s on-the-go consumers. The on-dash AVIC-F500BT, recently unveiled at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show, joins the same elite family of in-dash AVIC-F series navigation systems."

Maybe! The other exciting item of the weekend suggests, maybe we still have some way to go: Infosync decided to publish a "how-to item in its "Ask The Editors" section, where a reader asks: What's my Bluetooth PIN/device access code?
and Sindre Lia answers: 

There's no doubt about the convenience of Bluetooth connectivity, as long as you get it up and running...