Category: Web/Tech

Once again, sex proves to be a driver for new applications of technology. A Wired article on "toothing" reports on a new use for bluetooth-enabled mobile devices: "strangers on trains and buses and at bars and concerts hook up for clandestine sex by text messaging each other with their Bluetooth-enabled cell phones or PDAs." [Gizmodo…

AMD has been promoting free WiFi hotspots by creating a directory of businesses that host free hotspots and putting “AMD Hotspot” stickers up in some of those locations. According to this Wi-Fi Networking News story, some of those businesses did not consent to being included in the directory, and some did not consent to being…

The NY Times reports on Roku, another company providing digital artwork intended for large plasma displays. Roku sells a device, HD1000 (US$300), that can collect digital images from a memory card or your home network (through what is described as a tedious connection process). Roku also sells collections of artwork (e.g., nature, space, classic works)…

Tokyo-based ZMP has announced Nuvo, a human-shaped walking robot they plan to mass produce and offer commercially by the end of 2004. The walking, remote-controllable robot can pick itself up and send images of its surroundings, but it’s not clear whether this level functionality will be judged useful enough to justify its US$6000 price tag,…

Scott Blake has published a web site devoted to the art and science of bar codes. Categories include portraits, paintings, photos, tattoos and interactive pieces such as a barcode clock that is updated every second. (re-reblogged via ReBlog)

Eric Paulos sent me a link to Umbrella.net, a project by Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki exploring coincidence of need, using ad-hoc networking to examine how new relationships can form based on proximity and chance conditions (such as opening an umbrella in the rain).

A recent Washington Post article, distributed on the telecom-cities mailing list, reports on a number of interesting aspects of mobile phone use in Japan that we don’t see here in the USA. Among the highlights: fine-grained, voice-based navigation services via GPS-enabled mobile phones high subscription rate for Internet via mobile phone (55% of population) winning…

Chris Heathcote posts an interesting idea about using 2D barcodes — rather than RFID — to [geo]tag places and things, which can be scanned using camera-equipped mobile phones in order to link to their corresponding digital representations. Of course, if the idea were to really takeoff, one can imagine 2D barcodes literally littering popular sections…

Kids can be cruel, and now technology can be — and is — used to amplify that cruelty. An article written by Amanda Paulson in the Christian Science Monitor last December, and carried locally in yesterday’s Seattle Times, talked about this new trend, including a reference to a web site devoted to raising awareness and…