(1) Have you heard the hypeabout the wireless Web?
Either way, WAP an acronym for wireless application protocol is making the wireless
Internet a reality, and even if it isn't successful right now, this industry is expecting enormous
growth. Market researcher IDC predicts that 1.3 billion wireless Internet users will have
WAP-enabled devices by 2004.
(2) Where did WAP come from?
An industry consortium called the WAP Forum promotes WAP. The WAP forum was
founded in 1997 by Ericson, Motorola, Nokia and Phone.com after Phone.com developed a
server and browser for AT&T's PocketNet.
(3) What exactly is WAP
WAP is a set of protocols used to transfer data to wireless devices. WAP-enabled devices
provide wireless users with a limited version of the Web designed to work on the small black and

white screens of phones and PADs.
Websites accessed by WAP phones must be re-written to satisfy the wireless application
protocol; in order to do that, Web pages written in HTML must be transferred to the WAP
markup language (WML). Internet browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer read pages in
HTML, while a micro-browser on a WAP-enabled device reads pages in WML.
Major websites like Yahoo and Amazon.com have carefully designed their WAP sites to
look and feel much like their wired counterparts, while search engines like Google are
transferring pages from HTML to WML so they can be accessed by wireless users.
(4) What's the problem with WAP
WAP faces bandwidth constraints that limit the amount of data that can be transferred to the
devices. On the wireless Internet, users are presented with a fraction of information available on
the traditional version.
And while WAP is the leading wireless protocol now, that doesn't mean that isn't here to
stay. When a better version of the wireless Web becomes available, WAP could very well
become obsolete.
One potential competitor is NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese company which has developed a
hugely successful wireless data service called i-mode and expects to tap the U.S. market toward
the end of 2001.
Blue-tooth is a technology that connects electronic devices from camcorders to PDAs to
computers without using wires. Consumers began to see Bluetooth in action when Toshiba
starting selling a Bluetooth-enabled PC card over their website in September 2000 for $199.
Other vendors plan to follow with devices ranging from PDAs to mobile phones.
A Bluetooth device uses radio signal to send information from one Bluetooth device to
another though the air. For example, if you are trying to transfer a PC's address book to a PDA,
first the data in an address book is translated into a language that the PDA can understand by a
conduit. The data goes through the conduit to the Bluetooth device. The Bluetooth device is made
up of a base-band processor, a radio, and an antenna. The base-band processor transfers the data
into signals that the radio can understand, and the radio puts out signals in a frequency (2.4
gigahertz) that the antenna transmits through the air to another Bluetooth device within 30-feet.
The other device receives the data and processes it in the reverse order.
Bluetooth is supported by a Special Interest Group (SIG), which was founded in 1998 and
has approximately 2000 members, all of whom have access to Bluetooth specifications the
information needed to make a Bluetooth product. The SIG includes IBM, Intel, Microsoft and
Nokia, and works to develop and promote the Blue-tooth technology.
But Bluetooth, like many new technologies, may not be an instant hit. There are still plenty
of questions about the ability of these devices to speak the same language. So while devices
produced by the same company could communicate with each other easily, integration may be

difficult when multiple vendors are involved. And while consultants at Forrester Research expect
Bluetooth’s popularity to grow, the firm said in a brief that many businesses won't buy in, "until
user pressure forces them to in 2003“

1, hype  [haip]
v. 大肆宣传
2, acronym  ['ækrənim]
n. 缩写字,字头语
3, enormous  [i'nɔ:məs]
a. 巨大的,庞大的
4, consortium  [kən'sɔ:tjəm]
n. 联合,合伙,国际财团
5, obsolete  ['ɔbsəli:t]
a. 已废弃的,过时的
6, camcorders  ['kʌmkɔ:də(r)]
便携式摄像机,摄录机
7, conduit  ['kɔndit]
n. [电] 导管；沟渠；导水管
8, antenna  [æn'tenə]
n. 触角,天线