p2b bright[on] ideas

City Stats

Brighton & Hove Council has taken a lead in developing a web-based information servcie for local publicx sector partners - check out to see the range of information they have and how they are using geographical information systems to make information more accessible and more useful.

How about being a smart conferencing city?

Dave Greenop, SCIP's Board member for theplacetobe.net, suggested looking at how p2b can help with conferenceing facilities.

He suggested looking at using technology like smart badges [see www.ntag.com ] which know who you are and have details about you and which can communicate with other tags, such as:
* other users [swap contact details/interests/whatever]
* service providers [discount at restaurant/two sugars please/hotel bookings]

Is you bluejacking me?

Have you tried bluejacking? Using bluetooth phones to send messages to other bluetooth enabled phones in your vicinity? Try this site for more details: www.bluejackq.com/whatis.htm

At the moment it's the basis for childish pranks, but as more people get bluetooth-enabled phones this could be a way of making contact with people just because they happen to be in the same place as you. So at a local meeting or forum you could ask people to turn on their bluetooth and swap reqests for help, or make announcements, in the style of text messages.

What else could it do?

Shazam music thing

To use Shazam [www.shazam.com] dial 2580 on your mobile phone, then hold the phone up to a music source, like a loudspeaker in a pub, which is playing some music you'd like to identify. The source needs to be loud and clear enough for 20 seconds. A few moments later you receive a text message to the same phone telling you the name of the song [or telling you it can't identify it].

It costs 50p to be told what the song is, or 9p if it can't - either because it doesn't recognise it or because you didn't get near enough to the source.

It works by taking a sample wave form and matching against a database of millions of songs. So how can such advanced audio-matching techniques be use in other settings? Perhaps it's voice-recognition that knows it's you calling, as the basis for personalisation services?

[NB I have no interest in Shazam, I just think it's very clever...]

Bring us your bright ideas

theplacetobe.net is looking for bright ideas that use new technology to improve the information available to people who live and work in Brighton and Hove.

We're going to be pitching for funding for new projects and we're looking for ideas that reflect local people's needs and could be developed through ouir network of partners.

The first big project is p2b.net - the search engine for Brighton & Hove. find out more about it and give it a try at http://www.p2b.net

Next project is Brighton & Hove Community Server - a shared online space for local not for profit organisations. More on that soon.