I stumbled across the personal website of Per Persson, a Nokia researcher who is one of the designers behind Nokia Sensor. He's worked on a number of interesting sounding projects involving proximity, mobility, and social interaction.

The original work on Sensor was called Digidress:

DigiDress (2002-2003)

DigiDress was provided to Nokia employees for user trial. The software was made available and users with compatible phones were invited to download and try it out. The DigiDress prototype was equipped with a logging functionality that enabled us to collect very detailed information about what features were used and how much. During the study we collected 46 DigiDresses which were later subjected to analysis. We also interviewed 10 of the most active DigiDress users.

During the trial period (89 days) 618 users installed DigiDress on their phones. The average use span was 25 days. The identity expressions created were both serious and playful, revealing and non-revealing. Factors influencing the identity expression included strategies for personal impression management, privacy concerns, and social feedback. The application was used with both acquainted and unacquainted people, and viewing the identity expression of people nearby was one major motivation for continued use. Direct communication features such as Bluetooth messages were not commonly adopted. In several instances, DigiDress acted as a facilitator for 'real' social interaction between previously unacquainted users. Privacy concerns and their alleviations, as well as use barriers, were identified.

Weird. I would have thought bluetooth features would have been one of the primary factors for adoption, but mostly people seem to use it to get a better insight to others' 'identity'.

There's a long list of other interesting projects there. My favorite: Scent.

Scent (2002-2003)

By comparing the phonebook data stored on users' mobile phones, Scent application enriched face-to-face encounters by discovering common acquaintancies, while still maintaining privacy. It also allowed users to create identity expressions and guestbooks. 539 users installed Scent and used it over period of 8 weeks.

[pointer by Alex Carvalho]

[tags: Nokia Sensor, Per Persson, mososo, geolocation]