News

Not just a Bluetooth keyboard; a desktop hub

The thing that has stopped a lot of people getting excited about Bluetooth is simple: they don't have anything to connect a Bluetooth gadget to. (Well, a phone headset. Hooray). So Logitech's desktop hub may just change all that.

"These two new Bluetooth products, the Logitech MX 900 Bluetooth Optical Mouse and the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX for Bluetooth, both come with a hub for wireless connectivity between a desktop PC and Bluetooth mobile devices," said the company.

The breakthrough? "Both devices integrate PC and mobile phone technologies to provide greater flexibility for voice and messaging communications."

"Logitech has used Bluetooth to create a wireless bridge between the PC and other Bluetooth devices," said David Henry, senior vice president and general manager of Control Devices at Logitech.

"As these products enter the marketplace, we believe customers will be particularly pleased with the ability to wirelessly synchronise information between the desktop PC and a mobile phone or a PDA."

A user would be able to receive an SMS text message on the mobile phone and respond to it using a desktop PC, as well as back up their phone's address book. "Moving forward, we expect the list of capabilities to expand as more Bluetooth devices hit the marketplace," said Henry.

The wireless communications capabilities of the new products include:

Wirelessly synchronising information (e.g., address book, calendar) stored on a mobile phone or PDA with a desktop PC.

Managing Short Message Service (SMS) text messages directly from the PC with the bundled Logitech Mobile Phone Suite for Bluetooth. The onscreen SMS notification feature keeps continuous communications simple by providing the ability to use the PC to respond to messages sent to the mobile phone.

Enabling users to wirelessly download pictures taken from a camera-equipped, Bluetooth mobile phone to a PC.

Using a Bluetooth wireless headset with the PC. A Bluetooth wireless headset with the PC allows people to use voice with instant messenger applications, listen to streaming audio or converse using a voice-over-IP application - with a wireless range of 30 feet from the PC.

In theory, of course, you could have done pretty much all these things before. You'd buy a nice SMART USB dongle and connect a bluetooth phone with the right cordless telephony profile and configure it to do messaging and then buy a Microsoft cordless keyboard or a smaller, portable one like the fxCube or (when it becomes available) a Belkin Bluetooth mouse ... and make them all work together, and then write some software to extend their capabilities ... and link them all together to your ISP, to get Internet access.

Not very likely though, is it?

The Logitech Cordless Desktop MX for Bluetooth is available worldwide now, both in shops, and online at www.logitech.com. The suggested retail price for the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX for Bluetooth will be £149.99 and the suggested retail price for the MX900 Bluetooth Optical Mouse will be £89.99.