The TransSend app is a free, downloadable ActiveX control that resides in a browser and interacts with a Bluetooth radio in a PC to enable the transmission to a mobile device.
Mike Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG, acknowledged that the percentage of desktop PCs shipping with Bluetooth radios is still relatively small, but as many as 70% of all laptops leave the factory with the silicon already in them.
Indeed, initiatives like TransSend are designed not only to facilitate Bluetooth’s use by mobile subscribers, but also to foment the WPAN technology’s inclusion in more desk- as well as laptops.
Foley said content providers will have a fundamental role in growing the use of Bluetooth in this context, because they’re all very interested in getting their content to mobile devices, and while the SMS route has some advantages in that phones all support it and there is no need for an additional radio in the PC, it is limited to text, unless you go down the MMS route, which adds complexity.
In addition, both SMS and MMS, as traffic running over the wireless WAN (i.e. the cellular network), are chargeable services, whereas Bluetooth is free and, as Foley pointed out, it is an established data route that phones understand.
Another alternative, instant messaging, while not charges per word or per bit like text or multimedia messaging, still require specific clients on both ends of the communication, since it is a peer-to-peer app running over the WWAN.
TransSend can operate in one of two ways, Foley went on. One is for the website to display a special icon on which the user can click to initiate the communication, while another can simply be done by highlighting the desired content and right-clicking to transfer arbitrary text.
If you do a city search and find a page of restaurant addresses, you could send one to your phone, complete with map, he cited by way of example.
