There's a new GPS device out there called "Dash". CNN had a spot on it, that you can watch here. The idea is that the GPS communicates with other GPS's from other cars in the network. The Dash tracks traffic by tracking all of the Dash's that are out and about. Moreover, it can alert drivers to their relative proximity to things you may be looking for, like products. You get a little notice if you are in the region where something you've keyed in is available.
Of course, this network depends on many subscribers to the network to be successful. If only 1% of cars have the Dash, then there's probably too few signals to get an accurate picture of the traffic situation. This gets me thinking a lot about critical mass issues with social networks, wikis, and other collaborative places, but that's for another post. For today, we'll look at a more literal parallel in a conferencing environment.
There are all kinds of gizmos like nTAG that house participant profiles, and beep or do other obnoxious things to let their possessor's know when there's somebody approaching that shares an interest or offers expertise in an area of need. This is all well and good, but it seems that this function could be done by cell phones in the near enough future, and probably is already although I'm unaware of it. It would be nice if phones could be more easily used as polling devices as a replacement for Audience Response keypads.
Any cool devices you'd like to share? Better still, what's the best collaborative use you've seen for a mundane technology, like a cell phone?
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There is a device that I've heard of called the 'Magic Jack', which apparently replaces your regular phone provider. This device connects to the USB connection on your computer, and as long as you have a sufficient DSL connection, you can call local or long distance (to anywhere in US/Canada) for $20 US a year.
I personally do not know how much stock to put in such a product, but the concept of all communication devices in your home being centralized is very interesting to me...
Sounds kind of neat, but a little redundant if people are using skype the way they should be. With skype you don't need the device, and it enables videoconferencing, and has a social networking aspect. Magic Jack is kind of interesting http://www.magicjack.com/1/index.asp, but I imagine the DSL connectivity will be replaced by something that piggybacks wi-fi pretty soon.
Also, I know this guy named Jack who actually performs magic, so I expect this company will encounter some major infringement lawsuits.
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