In the shadow of the famous Jelling runestone, Denmark on Tuesday authorized the inventors of Bluetooth technology to use the name and symbol of the Viking king Harald with the Blue Tooth for the coming millennium.
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“In a spirit of goodwill and cooperation, we hereby authorize you to continue to use the Harald Bluetooth name for the next 1,000 years,” the Jelling Museum, which owns the stones, said in a symbolic statement. Runes of the same name that tell the story of the great king and his family.
King Harald I Blåtand – Harald Bluetooth in English – was a prominent historical figure in Northern Europe in the 10th century, famous for embracing Christianity and turning his back on the cult of Odin and Thor.
The man who owes his nickname to a devitalized tooth or, according to other sources, to his excessive fondness for blackberries and blueberries, is also the father of the unification of Norway with Denmark, which would last year after year until 1814.
Bluetooth, which allows electronic devices to communicate with each other without a cable connection, owes its name to this connecting king.
“The idea behind this new technology was that it should connect and unify. “Just like Harald Bluetooth did when he united Denmark and Norway,” one of the technology’s inventors, Jim Kardach, is quoted as saying in a press release.
The reference to Viking history goes beyond the name: The Bluetooth logo corresponds to the superimposition of two runes near an “H” and a “B”, like the ruler’s initials.
“After a quarter of a century of wireless wonders, we sincerely regret that we did not ask your permission before adopting the name Bluetooth for our revolutionary wireless technology,” the inventors said, lamenting with a smile “a rather outrageous gesture on our part.”