The reason he was known as Harald Blåtann (Bluetooth) was as mentioned that he had a dead tooth. These are normally black, not blue, but old norse did not distinguish between black and blue, thus the name.
I really like Bluetooth.<p>I just wish it would "just work". My bluetooth devices (high end) don't always connect properly and I have to disconnect them and reconnect them.<p>It's a minor inconvenience I know, but after 23 years I'd have hoped that those oddities would have been rounded out.
Harald Bluetooth built some amazing fortifications for his period of time:<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_ring_fortress" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_ring_fortress</a><p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263286349_A_Palisade_Fit_for_a_King_Ideal_Architecture_in_King_Harald_Bluetooth's_Jelling" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263286349_A_Palisad...</a>
According to geni.com[1], he is actually my 31st great grandfather.<p>Anonymized the first part of my line:<p>You → ********
your father → ********
his mother → ********
her mother → ********
her father → ** Johansen
his father → Johan Grove Kristoffersen
his father → Ingeborg Catharine Jentoft Henrichsdatter Klæboe
his mother → Henrich Johan Hansen Klæboe
her father → Maren Hansdatter Glein
his mother → Margaretha Johansdatter Grøn
her mother → Margrethe Christophersdatter Darre
her mother → Kristoffer Bjørnsen Bjørnsen
her father → Bjørn Rolfson Darre
his father → Maren Bjørnsdatter
his mother → Johanne Mattisdatter
her mother → Margreta Johannesdatter Kruckow
her mother → Anne Ludvigsdatter Barsebek
her mother → Magdalena Svare
her mother → Adelus Eringsdotter Erlingsdtr Tolstad, Hildugard
her mother → Elin Jonsdatter Hildugard Tolstad
her mother → Sigrid Erlingsdotter Bjarkøy
her mother → Elin Thoresdatter Bjarkøy
her mother → Ingebjørg Erlingsdatter Bjarkøy
her mother → Erling Alvsson Tornberg
her father → Ingeborg Bårdsdotter Rein
his mother → Bård Skule Guttormsson Rein
her father → Sigrid Torkjellsdotter Fugl
his mother → Hallkatla Sveinsdatter Av Aurland
her mother → Ingerid Svendsdatter of Denmark, Queen Consort of Norway
her mother → Sweyn II Estridson, King of Denmark
her father → Princess Estrid Margrethe (Margret), Of Svendsdatter
his mother → Sweyn I "Forkbeard", king of Denmark, Norway & England
her father → Harald "Blue Tooth", king of Denmark
his father<p>[1] <a href="https://www.geni.com/people/Harald-Blue-Tooth-king-of-Denmark/5473882692080138743" rel="nofollow">https://www.geni.com/people/Harald-Blue-Tooth-king-of-Denmar...</a>
I had a bluetooth mouse and keyboard on my PowerBook G4 for two years before I even had wifi. It worked flawlessly. As soon as folks started adding wifi to their homes the mouse became unusable and the keyboard would occasionally miss keys.<p>The modern solution of vendor specific dongles is more reliable, but I sure wish we didn't need them.
Relevant Tom Scott video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdmQp9M9jUo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdmQp9M9jUo</a>
Fun fact: last month, a contestant in the Brazilian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” was asked the million dollar^Wreais question: what is Bluetooth named after?<p><a href="https://gshow.globo.com/google/amp/programas/domingao-com-huck/noticia/professor-rafael-de-andrade-cunha-conquista-r-500-mil-em-quem-quer-ser-um-milionario.ghtml" rel="nofollow">https://gshow.globo.com/google/amp/programas/domingao-com-hu...</a><p>Spoiler alert: he chose not to answer and walked away with R$500k instead
I find Bluetooth impractical to use due to its slow speed and incompatibility between Android and Apple devices, as well as interference with Wi-Fi.<p>Everyone I know shares files via a centralized service like WhatsApp, but those are getting iffy also.<p>I share files locally through a hotspot and LWS:<p><a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.basov.lws.fdroid" rel="nofollow">https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.basov.lws.fdroid</a>
Speaking of Bluetooth, can anyone ELI5 to me why bidirectional Bluetooth audio (sound/microphone, i.e. headset mode) works so much better on Android than on Linux (PulseAudio/Pipewire)? People keep telling me that bidirectional audio is always bad but on Android it seems way less bad and voices actually sound pretty natural. What magic codec are they using?<p>Second question: Why is Android able to switch seamlessly between unidirectional and bidirectional modes while on Linux it seems this is not even possible with a USB dongle(?!) Shouldn't a USB dongle be able to just pretend it's a regular sound card and then take care of the mode/codec switching automatically? I.e. without telling the driver (i.e. the Linux system/PulseAudio/Pipewire) that they are actually talking to a Bluetooth system? Meanwhile, on Windows and Mac this seems to work fine…<p>Overall, I'm just baffled by how bad the situation with Bluetooth audio is on Linux. I mean it's 2022, god dammit.
I feel Bluetooth is the ever-unstable technology we have been beta testing for 2 decades.
I own Quietbose QuietComfort 35 which I paid 350 USD.
They are top of the line headphones and yet the bluetooth still sucks. This is not a blame on Quietbose which in fact might be one of the best product ever.
After few months of use I just decided it's just less annoying to use them with the cable.
BLUETOOTH STILL SUCKS!
More King Harald trivia: a story about King Harald making a boastful soldier shoot an apple off of his son’s head is the original source for the later legend of William Tell in Switzerland
Fun fact, the very first explanation of Bluetooth tech I saw was by Leo Laporte on Tech TV sometime in the 90s. The name was the first thing they discussed iirc.
I though everyone (old enough) knew this already, it was a somewhat talked about thing when Bluetooth started getting adopted in consumer technology aeons ago
That's interesting, I always thought it was because it was a competitor to Infrared, hence something new with another color in its name. Interesting how random things in my life are assumptions I never questioned.
Just to be clear, it is conjecture that the nickname was due to a dead tooth. It is not exactly clear what the nickname means. The word we translate to "tooth" could also mean "thane", so it could mean something like "the blue price" or "the black prince".<p>It has been argued that the nickname is unlikely to be because of a bad tooth, since this would have been common enough at the time not to be noteworthy. But of course there might have been some story behind which is lost to time.
Another, perhaps more plausible, theory of why King Harald was nicknamed "Bluetooth" is that it would have been the name of his sword: a sharp "tooth" of blued steel.
“In 1996, three industry leaders, Intel, Ericsson, and Nokia, met“<p>So Nordicsemi really had nothing to do with it? The world felt more consistent before I read that sentence.
If you’re curious to learn more about how Bluetooth was named, there’s an interview with Jim Kardach on the topic: <a href="https://blog.snapeda.com/2019/10/07/how-bluetooth-got-its-name-an-interview-with-jim-kardach/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.snapeda.com/2019/10/07/how-bluetooth-got-its-na...</a>
An interesting point about the logo, and a test of Unicode:<p>"The Bluetooth logo is a bind rune merging the Younger Futhark runes (Hagall) (ᚼ) and (Bjarkan) (ᛒ), Harald’s initials."
I find Bluetooth annoying to use since you have to license it. For example if you add an LED to an raspberry pi and you want to sell it to your friend you have to pay $9600 to SIG. (then you also have to pay $xxxx or more to get it certified by the FCC)
I used to give that story, in one of my Bluetooth classes. I ended up removing it, to save time, and also, because I used an Albert Uderzo character, from <i>Asterix</i>, as an illustration, and couldn’t share it online, with that image.
In '99/00, I remember a cartoon on a slide because the lecturer was involved in the BT spec. It took a while, but he was right that it would be ubiquitous.<p>I do have issues with BT compatibility between some devices with stuttering sound. For example, I have Edifier speakers that don't work properly with Apple devices.<p>Another issue is audio/video latency. aptX Low Latency isn't widely-supported. Receivers, TVs, computers, and any display device chain muxes or demuxes A/V should support an A/V calibration device discoverable by WiFi and BT containing a microphone and light sensor for automatic synchronization.<p>Pairing is a PITA. The behaviors of connecting, selecting, forcing, and moving devices are inconsistent and problematic. AirPods are terrible because they repeatedly connect when not wanted.
I still wonder why Apple has not dropped Bluetooth already. Bluetooth sucks, period. It helped shape many creative ideas, but it cannot meet the expectations in 2022 anymore.<p>Bluetooth was, and still is, the most widely used means of file sharing, esp. between Android devices. When Apple decided not to support file sharing over Bluetooth in iOS, that was a good decision, albeit being an inconvenience to users. But Apple then introduced AirDrop which work’s way better than Bluetooth. Meanwhile, there’s still no reliable way to wirelessly transfer files between Android and Windows devices, and your have to use Bluetooth for that!<p>Bluetooth also sucks when it comes to wireless headphones and other wireless accessories. I’m seriously surprised that Apple kept using Bluetooth for their AirPods.