"Nick Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The other idea for a 'killer mobile gps app' that occurred to me is > some sort of dynamic-flash-mob system, where you can express > interest in various activities, and it'll detect whenever a > 'critical mass' of people for a given activity are close enough > together and buzz them all. Imagine walking past a stranger and > suddenly your cellphones buzz to let you know you're both interested > in a quick game of something...
That sounds like great fun. Do you plan to introduce a central server and use a critical radius of a kilometer, or do you want to use wifi. I guess that wifi requires a fairly large userbase. Is it possible to design a system that worked with a central server without having the users reveal their position and identity all the time? On a related note I think that Slashdot once had a story about a (bluetooth based??) Japanese dating gadget that worked in a similar fashion. They had to buy the gadget, encode their preferences, and then wait for the unexpected buzz of finding a perfect match. They must have used some kind of encoding to prevent abuse, but I am not sure how it worked. On an even less related note it could be fun to keep a log-file of the wifi phones that stay in your vicinity for more than an hour (ignoring public transport). Then your phone can tell you whether or not you have met a given person before. Perhaps you can use data from the log file to query friends for further information or a vcard. This idea might require a lot of storage and a way to filter out routers, but it could lead to some fun. Enough babling... Actually I just wanted to wish you all good luck with finishing up the phones. I am looking forward to buying one. Niels _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community