8541RB Reading for Me Level 4 Part A

Factual
Harald Bluetooth Gormsson
Bluetooth technology has been around for more than 20 years. Bluetooth
is a short-range radio link between two devices. When two devices
connect without cables, you are using Bluetooth. You have probably seen
many Bluetooth devices before. Headphones and speakers are very common
examples. We use Bluetooth every day.
Have you ever wondered where the name
Bluetooth comes from?
Bluetooth was named after a 10th century
Viking king. His name was Harald ‘Blåtand’
Gormsson. King Harald had a rotten tooth.
It was dark blue. Blåtand, directly translated
from Danish, means blue tooth. King
Bluetooth’s biggest accomplishment as ruler
was that he united Denmark and Norway.
But what does King Harald have to do with modern short-range radio link
technology?
In the 1990s, three major technological companies started developing
their own versions of this technology. They decided to work together
to standardise it. The codename for this project was Bluetooth. The
reasoning behind this was that, just as King Harald united Scandinavia,
this technology would unite different devices.
When they had to think of a proper name, all the other options were
already trademarked by someone else. They ran out of time. The only
option left was their code name: Bluetooth.
The logo is also interesting. The ‘B’ Bluetooth logo is in fact King
Harald’s initials in old Danish!
I bet you’re never going to look at that logo the same way again.
88 Reading for Me Level 4 (Part A) 978-1-922843-63-0 R.I.C. Publications ® Prim-Ed Publishing