June 2000, Bluetooth Newsreel
Hello Tosh, got a Toshiba?
Story by: Alison Hawkings
IBC Telecoms & Media © 2000

Toshiba has a slew of products in development to hit the business-to-business community, virtual offices and SOHO markets. In prototype now and showing at Toshiba's stand at the show is a Bluetooth-enabled overhead projector. Essentially, the device has been designed for conference and presentations, enabling laptops and mobile phones to interoperate with each other - on for example PowerPoint slides. Toshiba has also designed some new software called SPAN Works (spontaneous personal area networking), which provides the integration and inter-networking between disparate platforms. For example, on the stand Toshiba has an IBM ThinkPad laptop and one of its own laptops communicating and sharing a PowerPoint presentation. The firm hopes the projector will go into production next year. IBM is claimed to be interested in taking Toshiba's SPAN Works technology for its own Bluetooth solutions. Also on show is a real time camera for video conferencing and collaborative workgroup situations. However, productisation for this will be determined by the definition of the Audio Video profiles. The one product that has begun to ship is the modem access point. According to Toshiba, this device is extremely suited to both corporates and home use. All it needs to function is to find the nearest PSTN outlet and the router equipped in laptops takes care of everything else. This is currently shipping in Japan.