The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, in search of a standard for its next version of Bluetooth, had already expressed its intention to pick between the quarreling UWB factions: WiMedia Alliance and the UWB Forum. Looks like WiMedia ended up fitting the bill best for bringing high speeds to Bluetooth connections, and it's expected that most UWB manufacturers will follow suit. Now the respective tech teams just need to sit down and hammer out the spec, which Bluetooth SIG estimates will take about a year, with prototype chips becoming available around Q2 2007. There are some distinct technological hurdles that must be jumped to get the 480mbps UWB interoperable with the 2.1mbps Bluetooth connections, including the fact that UWB operates in the unlicensed spectrum above 6GHz, while Bluetooth hangs out at 2.4GHz. Even with those problems in front of them, Bluetooth SIG is confident that UWB fits the low power consumption requirements of Bluetooth, and, of course, it's hard to scoff at the promised data rates.

[Via Phone Scoop]