Netniet.org wanted to explore what happens with rating people in a physical space. Inspired by reading, “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”, they reused the whuffie, a social currency in Cory Doctorow’s book which people use to rate each other and pass each other value which they use to live off.

“Are we heading towards a future in which social networks will also dominate real life? At the Impakt Festival, this future became reality. With your mobile phone you could judge the performances and especially the people around you, for instance, on whether they are drug free or dangerous. The way in which you are judged by people might also determines your experience of the festival: your popularity becomes tangible. Do you get an extra cookie to go with your tea?”

The installation was spread across 4 different spaces and two separate buildings. Each space had a screen that visualized ratings and zone presence of people participating. 5 days, 5 questions or ways to rate each other. People wore badges with unique ids and a mobile application was used to rate people. Ratings also showed correlations between people as they rated each other.
Example: “Is this person drug free?” Correlation: both have a low rating, means people think they use a lot of drugs. We would then present a random meaning inside the rating-triggered visualization, for instance, ” person 1 is likely to meet person 2 in a cloud of smoke somewhere”.

Check out a video fragment of the Gifted project up and running.

For the Roomware Project, the big benefit is that any of you can now build applications that can take advantage of our new zoning ability. It’s easy to download and there’s documentation too. It was certainly the most complex installation so far. A mobile client handled the ratings using mobile internet. RW Server handled the bluetooth device tracking. That the mobile client handled the rating was a blessing in disguise. We were trying to handle all rating via bluetooth. Fortunately this failed (java does not support writing bluetooth friendly name). If it had, it would have meant a long wait for the plodding speed of bluetooth readers to pass the detection of a rating along. Mobile internet did it within 4 seconds. From a user experience perspective this was just fine;)

See further post on Barcinsky + Jean Jean’s blog

Project Team

Alchemyst – zoning, bluetooth detection

Barcinsky and Jean Jean - data visualization

Nietniet.org – concept, voting application

Lava – graphic design

Nulaz – mobile client for voting

Impakt festival – Festival organization

“This is a modified version of our interactive installation featured at FITC Amsterdam. The actual bluetooth presence service has been replaced by a scripted simulator which randomly adds and removes people from the installation. Enter your name in the popup field in the bottom and you will be playing an instrument too!”

via Barcinski and JeanJean

The interesting new feature is that the networks parameter is simply a set of key-value pairs, and you can use anything as the key. So instead ofmac_address, for example, you could pass a GSM Cell ID, or a Bluetooth Device Address.….  

Once I’ve done that — gluing the Bluetooth Device Address, using the key bd_addr to the Plaze — I can now build a mobile application that scans for Bluetooth addresses and queries Plazes 

 

This is where it gets more interesting as far as Roomware is concerned, their method of using these keys as identifiers for presence could serve as an interesting use case for our own implementation of this sort of location ‘mapping’. One simple Roomware example we often talk about is using a batch of Roomware servers to act as Zones for a location for instance. Whenever someone is near one of the Roomware servers they are detected and can be placed on a map which can then be used by other applications to make a friend locater at large events or a historical timeline of visitor activity.  It’s nice to see some more working implementations in this field and maybe even the start of some standards for working with presence and network identifiers. 

We’ve placed a Mac Mini inside the bathroom with a Roomware server installed. This tracks all Bluetooth devices that walk into and out of this space. A neat application created in Flash using Papervision3D then ties a music sample to every Bluetooth device. Every time somebody with a mobile phone walks into the bathroom a certain instrument starts playing, like a drum, a harp or a saxophone. There are around 20 unique pieces of music that if played together are complimentary. This way a symphony of sounds is created every time people walk into and out of the bathroom. But visuals also play a large part in this. Each instrument is displayed as a primitive shape inside a 3D grid, which also moves in accordance to the sample it’s playing. A skybox of the actual physical location links the virtual and real together. There’s even a small legend that shows who is playing which instrument and what the Bluetooth name of his or hers device is. The result is stunning if we say so ourselves:

It’s a bit of a hassle to describe this application in word, so go and experience this great app for yourself.If you have time to swing by Keizersgracht 324 in Amsterdam this monday or tuesday, please take a leak!

Update: here’s a video walkthrough as well.

“Equipped with the appropriate technology, DAIM sprays graffiti into empty space. In a large hall, three cameras using Motion Capturing record DAIM’s position and the movements he executes with a virtual spray can. The assimilated data is shown to him in real time in a pair of video glasses – as free-floating 3D graffiti in space. In this way he can decide how and where to apply his strokes, and via a Bluetooth controller can also determine the colours, strength of brushstrokes and textures of his work.”

via woostercollective

Sandy Pentland, a researcher at MIT whose work has received funding from Nokia, is working on processing more than 350,000 hours of data collected from peoples’ cell phones. More than just who calls who, Pentland is also studying proximity, location and activity data using information like interactions recorded between Bluetooth devices.

  MIT Researcher Collecting Passive Social Graph Data From Cellphone Activity, Bluetooth

Last night arrived pretty suddenly! We had little under a week to have all things ready for a meeting of tech platforms. Hyves (the largest social network in the netherlands) gave us access to their API. We used it to present photostreams of their users detected within the radius of our bluetooth scanners. It’s a kind of location-based service, where, with your consent, your presence triggers your lifestream via photos to be remixed with those of others in proximity to you.

The reaction of the audience was noticably more positive than previous daytime or nighttime outtings. This time the audience was engaged and they were hungry for…well…….themselves! I wander what the VJs thought as the random selection of photos was hilarious.

Kudos definately go to roomware team members for pulling this off. Also great to test Tom’s completely rewritten code.

Thanks for the photo Boris. Here’s also a screenshot:

Upcoming server updates:

- RFID support, scan those passports
- Java Bluetooth library for the Mac, the one and only
- Server redesign, “more configurable, less fuzzy”

We are always open to ad-hoc presentations and showing off your latest code, tech or ideas. Let us know if you’ve built anything cool that you would like to present.

We’ve moved this DevHuis to the Post CS building next to Amsterdam Central Station where Wakoopa will kindly host our event on the 8th Floor (suite 804). We’ll be there starting around 12:00 until dinner in town nearby.

Add your name to the Upcoming guest roster!

“And as you may know and as WCI says, typical Bluetooth dongles have an average reach of about 30 feet. But don’t get too excited, the antenna included with the AIRcable Host XR only offers a range of about .6 miles; with the AIRcable Industrial XR doing the 18 miles and apparently needing professional installation. The Host XR will go for about $130 with the Industrial XR for $300. ”

via Ministry of Tech