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Witness History

The Bluetooth story

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1990s, Bluetooth was invented in a lab in Lund, Sweden.

The technology is used today to wirelessly connect accessories such as mice, keyboards, speakers and headphones to desktops, laptops and mobile phones.

It’s named after Harald Bluetooth, a Viking king who was said to have blue teeth.

Sven Mattisson, one of the brains behind the technology, tells Gill Kearsley how the name Bluetooth came about following some drinks after a conference.

(Photo: A mobile phone with the Bluetooth logo. Credit: Westend61 via Getty images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:24.9

searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello you're listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Jill

0:40.0

Kursley. First a quiz question for you from BBC TV's University Challenge.

0:47.0

Which nickname was given to the 10th century Viking Chief King Harold because of his

0:51.1

success in uniting the warring tribes of Denmark.

0:53.4

The name has been given to a modern electronic system of short-wave wireless connection.

0:58.8

The contestants don't seem to know the answer.

1:01.4

I'll tell you, it's Bluetooth.

1:02.4

Another starter question. We're going back to the

1:06.9

1990s to find out about the invention and its name. Here's Sven Matison, one of the brains behind the technology.

1:15.0

Now Bluetooth is fun, I think.

1:19.0

Bluetooth doesn't mean anything but it's easy to remember and pronounce it's a very good

1:24.4

good choice actually and it's also fun to have a Viking king as a background.

1:31.1

In 1995 Sven joined Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson and began

1:37.1

working on a new technological development that would become Bluetooth.

1:42.3

So the idea of sort of making a wireless link between the mobile phone and the headset

...

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