Alexander Veenendaal,	England
Neil Clavin,	UK
Daniel Sanderson,	England
Zachary Marshall,	England
James Harrington,	England

Toothspace addresses issues with ubiquitous devices that are increasingly integral to modern, urban living, highlighting and visualising the 'moving cloud' of information that we carry with us.

"The tools that enable cooperation also transmit to a large number of others a constellation of intimate data about each of us. In the recent past, it was said that digital information technology, such as the magnetic strips on credit cards, leaves a 'trail of electronic breadcrumbs' that can be used to track individuals. In the future, the trail will become a moving cloud as individuals broadcast information about themselves to devices within ten yards, a city block, or the entire world."
Howard Rheingold - Smart Mobs

Our project is called Toothspace. It addresses the issues with ubiquitous devices that are increasingly integral to modern, urban living, highlighting and visualising the 'moving cloud' of information that we carry with us.

Toothspace utilises Bluetooth - a short-range wireless technology developed for the purpose of allowing devices to exchange information. Not just a feature available on phones; it is also present in devices such as laptops, PDA's, mp3 players and even cars.

The primary identifier to other devices is the Bluetooth name, which can be altered by the owner of the phone, but often defaults to the manufacturer's name of the device. Enabled devices can scan the local area for other Bluetooth devices and make contact with them.

Bluetooth has recently entered the public consciousness with a number of uses not originally intended by its inventors. As William Gibson said, "the street finds its own use for things."

Bluejacking is a 'sport' that involves sending a vcard, an electronic business card, to other Bluetooth enabled users. Instead of contact details, a single line message is placed in the name field of the vcard, which when sent, appears immediately on the targets phone. The disconcerted recipient usually has no idea where the message came from, other than the name of the sender's device.

Although fairly innocent, Bluejacking is a glimpse of things to come - messages from mischievous individuals will turn into promotions from shops you walk past derived from your profile stored on your phone and correlated with your purchasing history.

One of the primary motivations behind Toothspace is to educate the public that the new devices that they carry with them are not completely benign; their visibility to others is no longer limited to eyesight.

Within the Toothspace are a number of display screens, which are built into the location. Bluetooth equipped visitors who enter the zone will see the name of their device appear on the displays as soon as they come into range. Toothspace will send a vcard to each new inhabitant, which contains a brief description of what is happening within the space they have entered along with a URL to the Toothspace website.

Several Bluetooth nodes are positioned at distances around the space to enable a rudimentary form of location tracking. By comparing signal strengths and response times, the system is able to make a rough estimate of where any Bluetooth device is in the space, and is then able to position the caption accordingly. Visitors leaving the Toothspace zone have their captions slowly fade and diminish in size.

Those interacting with the space are encouraged to experiment with the names of their devices in order to trigger a number of visual effects. Devices with colours as names, for example, change the display background. Other names can trigger visual effects such as explosions. Interactive effects are included in the system as 'Easter eggs' for the curious and playful to discover.

Built into the Toothspace is a camera, which inhabitants can trigger to capture themselves in front of their caption. The images appear on the website for further viewing.

The infrastructure of Toothspace is composed from a small number of components: display panels a controlling computer, Bluetooth nodes, a camera, and a connection onto the internet.

We envisage Toothspace being assembled from a kit, and installed in locations for varying durations. The system could be installed in a shop window, a town square, along a tunnel wall a gallery, or in bars.

Beyond the system commenting on the implications of the technology - there is no overriding prescription for what Toothspace will be used for. Toothspace will provide an ideal opportunity to meet new people in a fun way. Or, it would be an interesting distraction for those on the way to work. Additionally, there are commercial aspects of the project with possibilities for both personal and mass marketing-situated in a retail space.

We believe that once placed in the public space, Toothspace will encourage its participants to communicate their personality and learn to grow with and question the ambient technologies that are fast becoming a part of everyone's lives.

TWOC Design