ExtremeTech's Mark Hachman reports that Mike Foley, chairman of the Bluetooth SIG, now says a specification for Bluetooth over UWB won't arrive until about October of 2007. Products should follow by the end of 2008, Foley says.

"When Foley and the WiMedia Alliance announced the partnership in March, the two sides indicted that the specification would be completed by the first quarter of 2007, with first products due in early 2008," Hachman writes.

Hachman says Foley sees Bluetooth as cooperative with NFC as a contactless payment method, allowing the user to make the payment over NFC and then view the receipt over Bluetooth. "This is an example of how two technologies, working together, can be better than just one," Foley says.

Foley says that by the end of 2006, Bluetooth will have an installed base over close to a billion units worldwide.