Connecting 2 devices via Bluetooth (or Wi-fi)

Cellphone with car or Bluetooth speaker and Computer with TV (Apple AirPlay or Chromecast)

Airplay came first and is available only for iOS devices. Then came Chromecast that works on any device but will only show the Chrome browser. Now, that standard, called Miracast is allowing for Windows 10 computers to cast, too! These Casting protocols don’t use Bluetooth but rather piggyback on the wi-fi connection.

While Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are both wireless connections they are not used the same way. To oversimplify things, Bluethooth is connects two devices directly, is slower and is for shorter distances. As a result you can’t use it to connect to the internet like you can with Wi-Fi.  Read more about the differences, here.


Cross-posting on Social Media

Hootsuite is a service (both a webpage and an App) that allows you to log into multiple social media account and post the same thing to all of them. Though, if you post to Twitter, it will only include the first 280 characters of the tweet.

In the screenshot below, you can see the library has Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram connected. Below that is different feeds. The first is the library’s Twitter home feed, the second is all those tweets in which we were specifically mentioned, and the third is a feed of our tweets.

Hootstuie with the Post function open to show the different accounts

Some apps also allow you to post to another social media feed. For example, in the screenshot below, I can post the picture of my dog to not just my Instagram account but also my Facebook and Twitter accounts as well

Instagram post with the post to Facebook and Twitter toggle switches turned on


Virtual Assistant

Since they don’t have a screen, you need to download an app on a mobile device to manage it.  Each device will function slightly differently because the parent company has their own services and where they don’t offer something themselves (think: weather) they have partnerships with a different company. These are sometimes called Smart Speakers, too.

Alexa, put out by Amazon, was the first standalone device.

Siri, put out by Apple, was the first widely available virtual assistant and was included starting with the iPhone 4s (October 2011). Apple recently came out with their answer to Alexa, the Homepod (February 2018).

Google Home, surprisingly put out by Google, followed the same trajectory as Siri. First it was included on Android phones and then it came out as it’s own device (May 2016)

Homepod, Google, Home, Alexa

Homep0d, Google, Home, Alexahttps://www.digitaltrends.com/home/amazon-echo-vs-google-home-vs-apple-homepod/


Food for thought

The term bluetooth is not an acronym nor is it related to technology. Its name comes from King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson who was well known for two things: uniting Denmark and Norway in 958 and his dead tooth, which was a dark blue/grey color, and earned him the nickname Bluetooth.

Bonus! The Bluetooth logo is a bind rune merging the Younger Futhark runes (Hagall) (ᚼ) and (Bjarkan) (ᛒ), Harald’s initials.

Source: https://www.bluetooth.com/about-us/bluetooth-origin

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