What you always wanted to know about Bluetooth
You know King Blue-tooth?
A long, long time ago there was a Danish-Norwegian king, and his name was Blauzahn - Harald Blauzahn. He was said by his contemporaries to have had a special communicative ability: he was said to have possessed the gift of getting hostile people to sit down at the same table and to try to reach an agreement with them by talking to them. The goal of his efforts was to unite hostile tribes under one crown. When he died in 986 or 987, he had achieved his goal - parts of Denmark and Norway were united under one crown.
A good thousand years later, a man in Blauzahn's former kingdom was again concerned with aspects of communication.
The "child" needs a name
Electronics engineer Sven Mattisson was part of a special team tasked with developing a new radio standard at a research site of the telecommunications company Ericsson in the southern Swedish university town of Lund. This was to enable data transmission between cell phones over short distances without having to use the cell phone network or cables.
As part of his work, Mattisson later moved to North America, because Intel was now coordinating the research activities for the project. Other technology companies such as IBM, Nokia and Toshiba also joined the project. It is said that during a private conversation with a colleague, Jim Kardach, they came to talk about the topic of Nordic history and, among other things, about the former ruler Blauzahn and his communication skills. And like a flash of inspiration, both engineers realized that there could be no better name for their project than the English version of the Norse king Blauzahn - Bluetooth.
A whole armada of agencies and consultants had failed to find a truly appropriate name for the new technology. But from now on, Mattisson and Kardach spoke only of Bluetooth. A reminiscence of Harald Blauzahn - the namesake of wireless technology - can be found in the Bluetooth logo, which shows the initials HB in rune form.
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