A small, portable, solar-powered Bluetooth server, which pushes out ringtones, images, movies and games to passers-by has been designed for an urban environment.  Since user acceptance of technologies is important to the success of such installations, we conducted a survey ascertaining perceptions about Bluetooth as a means of sharing media.  Our work demonstrates the technosocial possibilities which result from establishing localized mediated spaces or meshworks, using Bluetooth which I will discuss in this talk.  However, Bluetooth technology is a double-edged sword.  It is a meshwork for sharing media freely between mobile device users in public places such as shopping centres and private spaces such as the home and workplace.  It presents opportunities for the design of innovative creative projects, however technical issues, user acceptance and competition for the user's attention provide continuing challenges. 

Bio: 

Dr Margaret Hamilton is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at  RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, from which she is currently on Sabbatical Leave.  She is primarily interested in research in HCI, mobile technologies and Computer Science Education. She was Co-chair of ACE2009 - Australasian Computing Education Conference, co-chair ACE2008, and a collaborator in many studies in computing education, including BRACE (Building Research in Australasian Computing Education) and RMIT mobile computing group which has undertaken studies with Tablet PCs, PDAs, mobile phones and the "solar-blue" bluetooth server. Chief investigator in study on how lecturers and students manage in large groups with plagiarism detection software, and has developed interactive workshops for introducing students to academic integrity practices with regard to assessment which she has been invited to discuss at other universities.  She has been invited to talk at INRIA, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control to their Perception, Cognition, Interaction and Visualisation group and is currently visiting  with Vassilis Kostakos at LabUSE.

Web: http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~mh/