On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:50 PM, evan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've been throwing around the idea of having a kind of conference > tracking application. Use the fact that at tech conferences most of > the attendees have bluetooth devices which broadcast an id. It'd be > great to mine the data anonymously, who stayed for the whole time, who > left early, people who attended x session also went to y and z. Kind > of like an audience version of what Schuyler presented at FOSS4G in > Victoria, but of the people not the session descriptions. > > Then with that data you could do some hallway visualizations, show > which rooms are crowded, which are empty... I think it could be really > interesting.
I've thought about doing something like this as well. At FooCamp this summer there was a bluetooth phone hooked up to a speaker that played goose honking sounds when multiple people with BT phones walked by. Cute ambient aural setup. So I think your one idea of using existing phones may be a good option. It would be straight-forward to poll the BT and even potentially use WiFi of a phone like the N95 so that it wouldn't require SIM cards. Use PyS60 or ProcessingMobile. Personally, I like the arduino idea better. There are BT shields, or even just hook up a SMiRF modem (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=158) and then use one of the Ethernet (XPort) or Wifi modules: http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=17_21&zenid=2eb10c369a9e8ae9241d555dc052497a Or even XBee for meshing of these systems. (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8471) Each station would probably run about $100-$150 going the arduino route - but then it's not someone's $$ N95. I would highly recommend getting the "Making Things Talk" book - it goes over all this kind of stuff to get up and running quickly. _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
