Healthcare-friendly Bluetooth revision is four times faster, still seems slow

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/03/healthcare-friendly-bluetooth-revision-is-four-times-faster-sti/

Bluetooth may be good for rocking tunes or dropping calls, but transmitting high-res medical imagery seems like something of a stretch. Nevertheless, that's what a team at the PSG College of Technology Peelamedu in India has worked up, dubbed PACS: Picture Archiving and Communication Systems. It's built on Bluetooth spec and so offers similar range and reliability of transmission, but at higher speeds. Only anecdotal bandwidth levels have been provided thus far, indicating a 1.5MB image can be transmitted in 120 seconds compared to the 400 standard Bluetooth would require; a nice boost for sure, but two minutes per picture still seems awfully slow when a good 'ol 802.11a WiFi could beam it in seconds -- and at greater range.

Update: As many commenters have pointed out, PACS is an existing infrastructure for storing and sharing medical imagery. This is an extension of that system to allow Bluetoothy communication.

Filed under: Wireless

Healthcare-friendly Bluetooth revision is four times faster, still seems slow originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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