Smart Badges For Better Meetings

Roland Piquepaille writes "In an article appearing in the November 15th issue of New Scientist, we're told that the 500 attendants of the last Pop!Tech conference were carrying intelligent badges to put around their necks. EurekAlert! has released a version of this article, "Hello, will you be my friend?" These nTAGs, distributed by the nTAG Interactive company, contained personal details about their wearers. And as the nTags can communicate with each other via infrared links, they are able to send alerts when they see a good match between two owners. This doesn't come up cheap: expect $40 to $100 per badge per day, depending on the event. More details and references are contained in this overview which also includes pictures."

Comments

It's only a matter of time...

[born_to_live_forever]

...before these sorts of badges are cheap enough to become everyday-use items. Imagine wearing a smart badge when you go out on the town, that tells other badges what you're looking for - say, whether you're looking for a one-night stand, or for Mr./Ms. Right.

Don't get me wrong - I think the idea is obnoxious... but when did that ever stop the yuppies?

No Bluetooth?

[rastachops]

Why are they using clumsy Infa Red? Why not Bluetooth? I'm sure it'd improve it a lot.

And no, Bluetooth is not dying like most of the USian /.er's think.

infrared?

[Unominous Coward]

Not meaning to add to the "why not bluetooth" posts already here, but how effective will infrared be for this sort of application. If you are facing someone who is turned away from you, your two badges won't have line of sight. I wonder whether they chose to use infrared solely based on the cost. Let's not forget the bluetooth licensing fees, either.

Stay away from me

[CGP314]

While the idea of these things is good, they make it very difficult to avoid people you'd rather not waste your time with. The loud, twitchy, obnoxious, guy everyone is trying to stay away from better not have the same likes and dislikes as you - or 'Beep! Beep! Beep!' the badge will let him know you are a potential friend.

This might seem like a trivial use of tech, but

[unassimilatible]

What if people started wearing themse tags all the time, and the receivers became ubiquitous, maybe with an earpiece. Say you're at the grocery store, and you pass by someone you don't recognize, like a long lost relative, or that friend of a friend. Perhaps that one Halle Berry lookalike who is really into Linux. A conversation starts that might not have, possibly changing your life.

But seriously. Perhaps it could lead to a sort of in-person IM or friendster..."hey, you on aisle 9, are you really into Everquest, kittens, and bondage? Me too!"

Of course, there's the risk of spam, hacking, and stalkers...

Actually, didn't someone propose just this sort of thing with cellphones?

Way Overpriced! Use Palm Pilots...

[billstewart]

$40-$100 per day? Even in Hong Kong Dollars, that's way overpriced. For US$100, you can get a brand new Palm Pilot with infrared, so all you need to make it an nTag is an oversize clear pocket protector and some software. Alternatively, for under $100, you can get a Bluetooth-equipped Java-capable phone, and somebody could easily enough program one of those to do the job.

Absolutely Dreadful

[dollar70]

It's been my experience that people who are natural socializers don't need any help from technology in order to get together, and the socially inept couldn't peel themselves from the wall with all the power of a beowolf cluster.

Believe it or not, people actually have the inborn ability (instinct) to find compatible people around them. Adding this technology will only serve as a device to exclude undesireable contact moreso than to find desireable interaction.

"Oh sorry, I'm really only interested in people who, like myself, have intimate first hand knowledge of the X-Men's superpowers."

In the end, you will have the same groups interacting as they always have, and the ego stroking will show no deviation from what has been seen before. It will just be more efficient.

And for those guys looking for meaningful one night stands, you'll still be spending the night with your old friend "Rosie Palmer".

Do it in phones

[t_allardyce]

These things are pretty old but i think they are doomed to corporate events at most - mobile phones will assimilate this in no time with bluetooth/wifi etc its just a software download. Then it will all start to expand with mobile filesharing etc (hm more memory or a laptop required) and the best part is the RIAA will be stumpted over this for a while. Its one thing calling an ISP and threatening them but people wont as readily accept arrests on the streets until the RIAA spins it and makes it seem like it has something to do with terrorism. Remember folks dont talk to strangers and share files unless your an unamerican scumbag terrorist!

Already most phones around have some sort of wireless (apart from the main one d'uh) support so this could take off because in the end phones are just another bit of hardware we can take advantage of with software.

Shades of Brian Aldiss...

[born_to_live_forever]

In the 1961 science fiction novel by Brian Aldiss, The Primal Urge, a new craze sweeps Britain. All over the nation, people have Emotion Registers, which show a red colour when the wearer is sexually aroused, installed in their foreheads. The results are a breakdown of society's "morals", as people give in to their sexual urges.

Now, this isn't exactly the same thing (and what is at issue here isn't so much sex as questions of privacy), but the comparison is interesting.

Aldiss himself cites the story as a sort of companion to his The Male Response (1961). Both books were banned for "obscenity" - The Primal Urge in Ireland, and The Male Response in South Africa.