At this year’s Digital Life Expo in New York, the Bluetooth SIG introduced a new application cleverly named “TransSend”—the play-on-words derived from the application’s broad compatibility with Bluetooth-enabled devices.Once the marketing lingo is peeled away, TransSend is best described as a tool to transfer arbitrary web content onto your portable device without cables, custom software on your handheld device, or (in the case of cell phones) charges on your phone bill for data transfers. Most of the work is done by your Bluetooth-enabled PC via a small application available as a free download from the Bluetooth SIG’s web site. Ironically, while TransSend stakes its claim on its broad support of Bluetooth devices, its developers did not spend nearly as much time on its breadth of support for the PC side of the equation.

The technology sounds remarkably useful: a savvy web developer can TransSend-enable a web site to enable the transfer of web snippets with a single click. This means a site like MapQuest could implement a feature to immediately transfer the map, driving directions, and contact information to your Bluetooth device without any babysitting. But even if the web developer hasn’t implemented the TransSend technology, the browser plug-in makes it a snap to simply highlight the content you want to transfer, right-click, and access the TransSend tools to manually transfer the information. If you’ve ever fought with platform-specific tools and tried traditional copy/paste methods, you’ll enjoy how TransSend streamlines the whole process.

TransSend works on hundreds of Bluetooth-enabled devices, from cell phones to PDAs to crossbreeds. The Bluetooth SIG’s web site even has a compatibility chart to determine which devices support which features. However, your PC had better be Intel-compatible, running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, and running Internet Explorer. This single limitation does more to hurt TransSend’s adoption than any other factor. When your product is built around device interoperability, why would you leave out Macintosh users—a big early adopter of Bluetooth technology? Why would you turn away 1 out of every 4 potential users by not supporting Firefox, Mozilla, or Opera?

The Bluetooth SIG states that “[s]upport for other stacks, browsers, and operating systems is being considered for future releases.” Let’s hope that the Bluetooth SIG really means “planned” instead of “considered.” Internet Explorer security vulnerabilities are routinely used to infect PCs with viruses and spyware. By linking the product with IE, the Bluetooth SIG are encouraging unsafe surfing. It’s like eating at a nice restaurant in a bad neighborhood—the food is great, and most of the time nothing happens, but once a month a patron’s car is broken into while they eat.

If you’re a security-conscious web surfer, or if you’ve kicked the Microsoft habit, the only way the Bluetooth SIG will know that you care about TransSend is to contact them—and an e-mail is a lot less expensive than a market research study. You can reach the TransSend support team at TransSendHelp@bluetooth.com. Encourage the Bluetooth SIG make the desktop support as broad as the Bluetooth device support.

Posted November 15, 2006 by BlueTomorrow.com Editorial Staff