ACCORDING TO A REPORT from ABI Research, the number of short-range wireless integrated circuits being shipped is going to leap by about twenty percent this year.

Although Bluetooth and WiFi, which by now even your nan has heard of, are set to be the biggest gainers, the still-kicking NFC (near field communications), UWB (ultra wideband), and 802.15.4 will make up the rest. Shipments are forecast to total five billion by 2014, the researchers added.

"Bluetooth ICs made up a significant part of the total short range wireless ICs shipments," says industry analyst Celia Bo. "Bluetooth took more than 55 [per cent], following by WiFi at around 35 per cent; the rest of the shipments were made up of NFC, UWB and 802.15.4 ICs."

Mobile handsets perhaps unsurprisingly swallow up the lions share of the chips, but Bluetooth is moving into other areas, ABI added, including game controllers and possibly the laptop you might be reading this on.

This growth will be aided by the adoption of Bluetooth low energy (BLE), which was recently announced by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. The analysts reckon that this will increase its use in any markets that need low cost and low power wireless connections.

Likely markets for this adoption include healthcare, security and home entertainment. We are going to add teapots, toasters and household lighting fixtures to this list too.

You can never have enough wireless connectivity in our books. µ