{"id":359127,"date":"2010-02-24T17:00:03","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T22:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jkontherun.com\/?p=58102"},"modified":"2010-02-24T17:00:03","modified_gmt":"2010-02-24T22:00:03","slug":"let%e2%80%99s-cut-the-cord-on-proprietary-wireless-adapters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/359127","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Cut the Cord on Proprietary Wireless Adapters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When I started to write this post, it was going to share news about Microsoft’s newest BlueTrack Technology mouse offerings. I swear it was, because Microsoft makes a good mouse<\/a>. I planned to tell you that either the new smaller Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 or Wireless Mouse 2000 will set you back $29.95. That’s a great price for a mouse that needs no pad. But I’m not going to focus on any of that since you can read the press release here<\/a>. Instead — and I really don’t<\/em> mean to make Microsoft an example because there are plenty<\/strong> of other culprits — I’m going to focus on three words: proprietary,\u00a0wireless and adapter. If it were up to me, I’d never<\/strong> hear or say those three words in succession again when talking about modern day computing devices.<\/p>\n

Last I checked, the calendar said the year was 2010. We’ve had a pretty solid and useful wireless standard in the form of Bluetooth 2.0 which the Bluetooth SIG adopted in 2004<\/a>, so why do companies still take it upon themselves to add unnecessary wireless adapters to products? Yes, I realize I’m ranting a little here and you’re probably thinking, “what’s the big deal as long as it works?” If you’re asking that question, you probably haven’t used a mobile device that has a limited number of USB ports. I have, and I simply don’t want to clog up a USB port needlessly for a mouse. I have 3G adapters, flash drives, portable external USB hard drives, phones and cameras that I’d rather — or must — use with those ports. Why bother having a perfectly standard Bluetooth radio in devices if we’re not going to use them? It’s not like Bluetooth is a new, unproven technology or not readily offered in mobile devices.<\/p>\n

Simply put, there’s no reason — technical or otherwise — that wireless peripherals like a mouse should only be supported by proprietary wireless means. I’m not suggesting the approach is totally killed off because I realize that most desktops and some laptops don’t offer Bluetooth. But it’s 2010 folks — let’s at least make the proprietary approach secondary<\/em> to the widely recognized standards solutions. And I hate to point this out, because it’s just an example, but out of the 13 wireless mice currently offered on Microsoft’s Hardware site<\/a>, only three use a standard Bluetooth connection, while the other 10 require a special USB\u00a0transceiver. It’s time to pull the plug on this wireless waste.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Microsoft<\/a><\/p>\n

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req\u2019d):<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why We May Never Reach Home Networking Nirvana<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I started to write this post, it was going to share news about Microsoft’s newest BlueTrack Technology mouse offerings. I swear it was, because Microsoft makes a good mouse. I planned to tell you that either the new smaller Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 or Wireless Mouse 2000 will set you back $29.95. That’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-wireless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}