Cambridge Silicon Radio Take a Holiday

From our Boondoggle and Solitaire Dept: Cambridge Silicon Radio, leading maker of Bluetooth radio chips, has devised a dubious marketing promotion: Sending a 41-ft. sailing yacht on a trans-Atlantic junket with stops in (the Bluetooth Nexus of) Bermuda, and (the global wireless business capital) the Azores. Well, you say, surely this grueling mission will put a boatload of advanced Bluetooth technologies to the test. Yep, they’re shipping out all the big guns: 2 PDAs, a camera, a GPS and a laptop. I guess they had to leave a little room in the hold for the tequila and margarita mix. But what a great test environment, just like the real world: no RF interference for hundreds of miles, fiberglass walls, very little metal, and a limited test range of 41ft. Call me Ishmail, but if those PDAs sync up, it will surely prove that Bluetooth is the Great Whale of the wireless world. Seriously, though, I like Bluetooth, but I actually carry more Bluetooth radios in my briefcase than they do on this boat. This is a boondoggle of boondoggles. I wonder if the sailing crew has blood connections to the management? You know, the son who couldn’t get an internship...

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