Bluetooth
Nothings so dated as yesterdays futurism. In 1993, naming a high-tech magazine "Wired" must have seemed really hip. Today, "wired" devices are yesterdays tech. No one wants a mess like the one in Figure 25-1, but everyones got one...although slowly thats starting to change. Network, speaker, microphone, mouse, and keyboard connections are already going wireless. Disks, cameras, and monitors will follow soon. By the end of this decade, most systems should have a power cord and nothing more. By 2020, even the power cord might vanish. Its obvious the future belongs to wireless. After all, every cable you can remove from your system is one less leash tethering you to your desk. 802.11 is de rigueur for notebooks and increasingly common in desktops. Cell phones let us communicate from anywhere. Infrared gave rise to the clicker and freed us from commercials. Bluetooth is rapidly becoming the preferred way to connect computers to low-bandwidth peripherals like keyboards, mice, and remote controls.
Figure 25-1. A typical wired system
