Data Acquisition Web

One of the earliest motivations of the companies involved in IrDA was to eliminate wires and connectors. Wires fray, wear, break, corrode, get tangled, and sometimes fail to reach far enough. The connectors on wires come lose, break, or otherwise become mangled and unusable. Wired connections clog desks, and are notoriously forgotten by portable traveler who discovers that his mobile is useless without that one special left behind.

It has become obvious that once the physical connector is gone (leaving in essence a “universal” connector), standardizing on higher level protocols can provide greater levels of interoperability. Subsequently, optional protocols have been approved, most of them derived from a specific vertical application model.

Standardizing on these protocols, application vendors can build systems that interoperate with systems of other vendors. That is the power of universal data access. In the short range, walk up, point and shoot space, IrDA offers that promise, which is becoming more and more a reality.