convergence – совмещение, слияние fray – столкновение

seamlessly – бесшовно, легко, плавно handsets – телефонная трубка

full-fledged smartphones – полноценные смартфоны unorthodox approach – нестандартный подход unveil – открывать, оглашать, представлять

touchscreen-centric design – сенсорный экран-ориентированный дизайн full-blown multimedia powerhouse – полноценный мультимедийный центр

Bluetooth Invention

If you own a smartphone, tablet, laptop, speakers or any of the array of electronic devices on the market today, there's a good chance that, at some point, you've "paired" at least a couple of them together. And while virtually all our personal devices these days are equipped with Bluetooth technology, few people actually know how it got there.

The Somewhat Dark Backstory

Strangely enough, Hollywood and World War II played a pivotal role in the creation of not only Bluetooth, but a multitude of wireless technologies. It all began in 1937 when Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian-born actress, left her marriage to an arms dealer with ties to Nazis and fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and fled to Hollywood in hopes of becoming a star. With the support of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who promoted her to audiences as "the world's most beautiful woman," Lamarr notched roles in films such as Boom Town starring Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, Ziegfeld Girl starring Judy Garland, and 1949 hit Samson and Delilah.

Somehow she also found time to do some inventing on the side. Using her drafting table, she experimented with concepts that included a reworked stoplight design and a fizzy instant drink that came in tablet form. Although none of them panned out, it was her collaboration with composer George Antheil on an innovative guidance system for torpedoes that set her on a course to change the world.

Drawing on what she learned about weapons systems while she was married, the two used paper player piano rolls to generate radio frequencies that hopped around as a way to prevent the enemy from jamming the signal. Initially, the U.S. Navy was reluctant to implement Lamarr and Antheil’s spread-spectrum radio technology, but would later deploy the system to relay information about the position of enemy submarines to military aircraft flying overhead.

Today, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are two variations of spread-spectrum radio.

Bluetooth’s Swedish Origins

So who invented Bluetooth? The short answer is Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson. The team effort began in 1989 when the Chief Technology Officer of Ericsson Mobile, Nils Rydbeck, together with a physician named Johan Ullman, commissioned engineers Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson to come up with an optimal "short-link" radio technology standard for transmitting signals between personal

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