![]() It’s a fine, if somewhat ambitious, plan on paper, and the Apple/Google partnership is already drawing generally positive commentary from the privacy and civil liberties-minded set for its efforts to mask the identity of a Bluetooth device’s owner.īut like many great paper plans, the fundamental nature of the universe presents some complications. If one of these “HELLO, I AM BLUETOOTH!” messages ends up coming from an individual who later tests positive for Covid-19, the hope is that anyone else whose phone was able to detect that message could then be alerted and tested (or treated) accordingly. It’s exactly these short, repeating radio wave bursts that tech companies and public health authorities hope can be used for contact tracing, by collecting an anonymized record of every Bluetooth announcement within a certain range. Banking on the standard’s ubiquity, and considerably improved reliability since the ’90s, these entities hope to turn billions of Bluetooth-enabled devices into an army of public health automatons that can map anyone who came into contact with someone who tests positive for Covid-19.Īlthough the exact plans for using Bluetooth vary between governments, the gist is simple: In order for your iPhone to connect to your friend’s Bluetooth speaker, it has to essentially shout its existence into the electromagnetic spectrum, sending repeated radio messages that announce that the device is turned on and willing to pair with another. Named for the 10th century king Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, famous in Scandinavia for uniting (and Christianizing) the Danes, the humble, oft-derided wireless technology included in some form in nearly every portable device from the past decade and beyond is central to coronavirus contact tracing apps pushed by Apple, Google, and governments across the world. ![]() According to its two co-inventors, there could be some issues. Now this wireless technology concocted in the ’90s to help PCs and mobile phones communicate is being asked to step up and save the planet from a global pandemic. ![]() Bluetooth has spent much of its life ignobly associated with crummy headphones, byzantine connection procedures, and car stereo systems that never quite seem to work right. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |