Bluetooth is such an advanced form of technology that many people are using it to help others.

After watching a blind man try to catch a bus in Oakland, CA, Priya Narasimhan developed Trinetra (which is the Sanskrit word for the powerful third eye of the Hindu god). The technology is an affordable, smartphone-enabled software that helps the visually impaired with everyday activities. The technology, which is still in development, uses Bluetooth-enabled cell phones to read barcode information to identify grocery store items. It also helps read bus schedules and figure currency.

Using a bar code-reading pencil, the scanned product is sent via the wireless headset to an Internet-enabled cell phone. The phone communicates with a public database, which identifies the bar code.

Starkey Labratories has created a gizmo consisting of a hearing-aid plug-in module that adds Bluetooth wireless-networking capabilities. This allows for direct interaction with almost any Bluetooth-equipped cell phone.

Starkey has also invented the SoundPort, which is an in-the-ear Bluetooth headset not only interacts with Bluetooth cell phones but adds hearing-aid-like audio augmentation. The Bluetooth is combined with Starkey's state-of-the-art hard-plastic earpiece that can fit a user's specific ear canal for better comfort.

Finally, a Bath University scientists have created a tool using Bluetooth devices to build new friendship networks and learn more about human interactions. Users register with the Facebook tool, called Cityware, that tracks encounters in the real world via Bluetooth. The tool lets users find out if any of the people they bump into regularly is a Cityware user and has a profile of Facebook. If so, they can add that person to their friends' list. These nodes are computers which constantly scan for Bluetooth-enabled devices in a given area, and send that information back to servers which compare the IDs of the gadgets with any enabled Facebook profiles.