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Ask Slashdot: Wireless Proximity Detection?
New submitter Cinnamon Whirl writes "As a chemist, I work in a both lab and office enviroments, and need access to data in both, without causing undue clutter in either. My company has recently purchased two Win7 tablets for trial usage with electronic lab notebooks, propietry software, SAP, email etc. These are also useful for sharing in meetings, etc. As part of this project, I have been wondering whether we can use these tablets to detect other devices by proximity. Examples could include finding the nearest printer or monitor or, perhaps trickier, could two roaming devices find each other? Although lab technology is rarely cutting edge, I can see a day when all our sensors and probes will broadcast data (wireless thermocouples are already available), and positioning information will become much more important. What technologies exist to do this? How accurate can the detection be?"
Bluetooth is a good option, also look at RFID. There are RFID kits that are windows compatible. Check it out and hopefully this will help get you started as to some of the possibilities. http://www.trossenrobotics.com/p/RFID-experimenters-kit.aspx?feed=Froogle -cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.