I have fallen for the forbidden fruit — cellphone apps and Java.
Part of our work in the Computers for the Rest of You class is to study that which we experience every day in ways that we aren’t fully paying attention to, studying what’s missing — that which we’re conscious for, in the (generally misused) sense of being awake, but aren’t conscious of. We’re supposed to look at creating a mini-us who would live on our shoulders (also see: Homunculus — pic and linked Wikipedia article below) — objectively watching our daily life, catching what we miss as we go through our day.
We, of course, are going to be nerds and do this via some sort of data logging technology (a video camera, an audio recorder, a microcontroller, whatever). The class-sponsored way (and best fit for my plans, as well as I can tell) is to use a bunch of sensors, read them with a microcontroller, send that data by Bluetooth (Blue SMiRF) to a phone, and log it that way. NYU has loaned me a Nokia N80 phone, and Scott has loaned me a Blue SMiRF, so the experimentation is ON!
So far I’ve gotten the phone to accept the java logger applet that DanO wrote, and started testing it. It’s working thus far, though I haven’t tried sending it any actual data. That’s next on the planner.
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