{"id":64486,"date":"2018-01-03T03:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.com\/?p=64486"},"modified":"2017-12-29T17:10:16","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T22:10:16","slug":"uncommon-knowledge-how-did-an-ancient-king-inspire-our-word-for-wireless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/2018\/uncommon-knowledge-how-did-an-ancient-king-inspire-our-word-for-wireless\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Knowledge: How Did an Ancient King Inspire Our Word for &#8220;Wireless&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/product\/diy-bluetooth-speaker?source=blog_uk_120117\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-64498 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/47415_bluetoothspeaker2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"650\" \/><\/a>Today, Bluetooth\u00ae means instant connectivity, like playing tunes from your phone to your speaker, or syncing a photo slideshow to your TV. But back in 940 A.D., Bluetooth was a great Danish king credited with uniting all of Scandinavia. See the connection? In 1996 the inventors of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bluetooth.com\/about-us\/our-history\">our single wireless standard<\/a> (aka a cohort of totally techie geniuses) were puzzled with how to name such a brilliant, futuristic technology that would ultimately change the way we use our devices. So, instead of thinking forward, the group went back\u2014<em>way<\/em> back\u2014to the middle ages.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The idea was raised over a round of grog, or \u201cbeer\u201d if you want to get all contemporary. As they sipped, engineer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/research\/stocks\/private\/person.asp?personId=145285128&amp;privcapId=142435312&amp;previousCapId=228933527&amp;previousTitle=Pastry%2520Sweden%2520AB\">Sven Mattisson<\/a> told the group about a book he\u2019d just finished that chronicled King Harald Gormsson. The ruler was famous for two things: uniting Scandanavia, and also his dead, blue tooth. They decided it would make a great code name for the program, since King Bluetooth brought a more civilized lifestyle to Denmark&#8211;the same way they would revolutionize modern technology. After many failed attempts to name it including \u201cFlirt,\u201d and \u201cPAN,\u201d they stuck with historians&#8217; favorite Nordic ruler. The little symbol even includes the letters K and B to stand for \u201cKing Bluetooth.\u201d Now the iconic image can be seen on millions of \u201csmart\u201d devices across the world. Who knew it was all thanks to an ancient leader with a dead tooth?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/product\/diy-bluetooth-speaker?source=blog_uk_120117\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DIY Bluetooth Speaker<\/a> | $100<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, Bluetooth\u00ae means instant connectivity, like playing tunes from your phone to your speaker, or syncing a photo slideshow&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"featured_media":64498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208],"tags":[813],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/251"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64486"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64521,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64486\/revisions\/64521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}