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This year marks the thirteenth anniversary that Dr. Jaap Haartsen was issued the patent for Bluetooth; a nearly ubiquitous technology synonymous with mobility and a mobile lifestyle.<\/p>\nThis year marks the thirteenth anniversary that Dr. Jaap Haartsen was issued the patent for Bluetooth; a nearly ubiquitous technology synonymous with mobility and a mobile lifestyle.<\/p>\n
His colleagues borrowed Bluetooth\u2019s name from the 10th century King of Denmark, King Harald Bluetooth, who was famous for uniting Scandinavia. But if Dr. Haartsen had his way, we might all be calling it \u201cPiccolo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jaap explains<\/a> that Bluetooth was inspired by how all the instruments in orchestras play notes that \u201cfit together.\u201d Today Bluetooth enables everything from phones and headsets, to toothbrushes and lawnmowers, to connect through networks called piconets. According to ABI Research, the total number of Bluetooth-enabled devices is forecasted to reach nearly 10 billion by 2018.<\/p>\n Known by many as the \u2018Father of Bluetooth\u2019, Jaap is now in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and was recently named to the Consumer Technology (CT) Hall of Fame, and I\u2019m proud to say, he works at Plantronics. Congratulations Jaap!<\/p>\n It\u2019s just this kind of spirit of invention that\u2019s fueling our current efforts to solve some of today\u2019s most pressing communications challenges in enterprise and contact center environments. Employers expect productivity<\/a> from their staff while in the office, from home, and from the road. Social media advances and the ability to make or break a brand with just one negative post are transforming customer service and call centers. Our personal devices have more communication capabilities than ever before, and cloud capabilities combined with sensors, beacons, apps and powerful analytics are pushing us into some very cool and still uncharted territory.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve got a lot of irons in the fire here at Plantronics when it comes to innovation and exploration \u2013 from intelligent devices and software<\/a> that pinpoint how employees use their headsets to embedded Smart Sensor technology and our proprietary WindSmart technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n Like Dr. Haartsen did when he was working to develop Bluetooth, we pursue innovation because we want to solve problems. In my role as VP of Innovation and Strategy at Plantronics, I get to investigate what\u2019s possible, collaborating with talented individuals like Jaap and other leading technologists across our organization to push the bleeding-edge of innovation and challenge the status quo. Our business isn\u2019t just technology\u2014we want to remove friction and make people\u2019s lives just that much easier, wherever they happen to be and whatever they\u2019re doing\u2014and ultimately, help create more powerful and intuitive human connections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year marks the thirteenth anniversary that Dr. Jaap Haartsen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[547],"tags":[764,1327,1328,1329],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}