Show yourself

At the risk of sounding like a Nokia commercial (I know, I've blogged about work stuff before), I would like to direct your attention to Nokia Sensor, a cool (and free) app that gives you the ability to make and display a local home page on your (relatively recent) Series 60 cell phone; a home page which other people in your vicinity can browse over Bluetooth.

A friend of mine said once that he dreads the day when you can go to the toilet, and without taking a peek, figure out who is in the next booth. Well, I happened to have a prototype version of Sensor on my phone at that exact moment, so I had to bite my lip and deftly direct the discussion elsewhere, but... that day has arrived.

It remains to be seen how popular this thing becomes, but it does demonstrate how cell phones are slowly becoming extensions of your persona instead of just a way to throw your voice to a remote location. Mobile phones have been the Great Equalizers of Distance - one can call anyone anywhere, but what Sensor (and a few apps before it; it's not an unique idea, though it's certainly one of the first apps of its kind) does is that it assigns more meaning to your proximity, your immediate surroundings. Which usually is more interesting to you personally than what is happening across the street or in Bolivia. It's different to show an aspect of your personality to people who are within 10 meters of you than to a random Googler searching for "dock woman porno" (a recent favourite in this blog).

(Disclaimer: I work for the company, and was involved at a very minor level in the early development of Sensor. Plus that I also am a geek, who gets very excited at new mobile technology, and actually likes the idea of having a computer-assisted social life (CASL)).




Comments

I noticed the Sensor too. Interesting concept. I hope with Cabirs flying around that you CAN'T manipulate Sensor messages so that receiving phone believes something to be a Sensor message and in fact it's not.

I was yesterday at Momo meeting (met Russell by the way) and walked around with my handset's bluetooth enabled (without Sensor though). Nobody contacted me via my mobile.

Henrikki

--lakiapu@kolumbus.fi, 10-May-2005


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"Main_blogentry_090505_1" last changed on 09-May-2005 16:45:16 EEST by JanneJalkanen.