FaceTooth
by Imran Ali
A few weeks ago, researchers at bath University in the UK, launched Cityware, a mashup of Bluetooth and Facebook that gathers data about Facebook users who have been in the same physical place at the same time.
Various sites in Bath, London, San Diego have been equipped with nodes that scan for Bluetooth devices and their registered IDs. Cityware then uses these IDs to lookup the respective Facebook profiles of each user in that location at the time.
Though ostensibly an interesting mashup, Cityware is part of a broader study into ubiquitous and pervasive computing, particularly in urban spaces. What such experimentation may give rise to is some interesting developments in machine messaging as our mobile devices silently negotiate and discover people in our vicinity…perhaps a kind of mobile bacn!
More coverage at…
- Bluetooth/Facebook Nodes Take Even More Human Interaction Out of Meeting People
- Bluetooth helps Facebook friends
- Cityware - Urban Design & Pervasive Systems
