BlueSniper is a rifle-like tool used for 'BlueSnarfing', or in other words: a tool used to capture personal information - such as the contents of an address book, calendar etc. - from insecure Bluetooth-enabled phones.

BlueSniper works from more than a mile away and the *shooter* can even plant phony text messages in a phone's memory, or turn it into a listening device to pick up conversations in the phone's vicinity.

The device was demonstrated at the DefCon hacker conferences in Las Vegas.

• How To Build a BlueSniper Rifle

A Danish Library has tagged its entire media collection (+300.000) with RIFD stickers in place of barcodes.

Besides enabling its borrowers to automatically borrow, renew and return books and other media, the Library is developing an 'intelligent bookshelf' that will make it easier to find books as well as alert people if an item has been misplaced. Naturally, the RFID tagged items are also secured against theft.

By employing RFID, the idea is to optimize the library-experience and free ressources to focus on entirely new services for the future. The library offers an extensive amount of info on RFID technology, which might be the reason why they apparently have recieved little or no complaints about privacy issues, which otherwise tend to dominate the discourse when RFID is used in the public service sector.

• Silkeborg Public Library

DartMail is a project by Tony Tang and Eric Pattison from the University of Calgary that explores how to physically shoot a digital mail message at someone, using a dart gun.

The head of the dart contains an RFID tag with information that can be attached by waving it over a reader connected to a computer. After being shot, the victim can pass the dart over a similar reader and see the mail message on his/hers own computer.

A mission impossible? Well, check the video documentation at the University's gadget gallery to see DartMail in action.

• DartMail

Grafedia is text, written by hand onto a physical surface, that links to rich media content via SMS.

A Grafedia hyperlink is characterized by being blue with an underscore, possibly a tribute to the classic defualt HTML hyperlink. When recognizing such a link on a surface people can *click* on it via their cellphones by sending a message addressed to the word + "@grafedia.net" and they will get the content behind the link delivered to their phone.

Grafedia authors can make hyperlinked text in three easy steps: 1. Choose a word. 2. Send a media file from your cell phone to that chosen word + '@grafedia.net'. 3. Write that word anywhere in the real world in blue with an underline. That word will then be linked to the media file the author sent to grafedia.net, and viewers will be able to retrieve the file. Files can be uploaded from a computer directly to the grafedia.net server.

Grafedia was created by John Geraci at the Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU.

• Grafedia

Without the consent of the parents, students at the Brittan Elementary School, California has been required to wear RFID badges that can track and maintain records of their movements on the campus.

The system - which is provided by The Incom Corporation - was imposed by the school as a way to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety. Furthermore, principal Earnie Graham hopes to eventually add bar codes to the existing ID's so that students can use them to pay for cafeteria meals and check out library books.

However, a group of angry parents, backed up by the American Civil Liberties Union, is fighting the school board's decision to tag the students. The parents want to base their children's upbringing on trust - not on surveillance.

• abcnews • incomcorporation.com

In collaboration with a local school, The Waag Society in Amsterdam has developed a concept for a 'mobile learning game'.

The game is designed for students in the age of 11-12 and employ mobile phones and GPS-technology to examine whether it's possible to provide an educational location-based experience.

In the Frequency 1550 mobile game, students are transported to the medieval Amsterdam of 1550 via mobile phone. For one to two days, they roam through the city in small groups, using GPS to know their own positions as well as other players or objects. The students - or players - will need to demonstrate their knowledge of medieval Amsterdam by doing location-based media-assignments on the city's history.

The project is supported by KPN Mobile's UMTS network.

• www.businessweek.com

It's hardly a secret that Email (the killer-app of the 90's) and SMS (the killer app of the 00's) has reduced the need for standard postal services such as letters and postcards (the killer-apps before the late 90's).

But now, a Swiss initiative is trying to take advantage of the synergy between the digital and physical communication technologies rather than viewing them as separate entities.

The Swiss post office, Swisscom mobile and the museum for communication has introduced the world's first MMS self-service stamp. Users are encouraged to MMS their own pictures to a website where people can vote for their favorites by SMS. The 4 most popular motifs will be produced as genuine stamps.

The motto of the initiative is 'Swiss mobil - Ein Land unterwegs' / 'Swiss Mobile - A Country on the Go'.

• www.mms-stamp.ch

The Ringtone Society is an initiative by Dutch Muzieklab Brabant and SubmarineChannel that aims to liberate the world of ridiculous ringtones by inviting artists to compose original ringtones.

In order to contribute, you must accept the rules of the Society's manifesto, such as this one: "Ringtone musicians must always enlarge and enrich the field of sounds more. That is, they must respond to our needs of sensibilities."

You can download and listen to the contributions at the Ringtone Society's website.

• Ringtone Society

Each year Tate Britain invites an artist to create a Christmas Tree. This year sculptor Richard Wentworth has dressed a traditional Norwegian Spruce tree with broken halves of plates and strings of dimmed domestic light bulbs.

Additionally, visitors with Bluetooth enabled phones are invited to interact with the tree by leaving digital presents (photos, movies, texts etc) via the Christmas tree’s bluetooth antenna. Text messages can also be left via Tate's homepage.

The digital presents will be unwrapped at www.untitledfolder.org/christmastree on Christmas day.

• www.tate.org.uk

Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, reports in his weblog about a visit to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada where he spend 5 days for a live fire demo and briefings about the future of air war.

According to Anderson, the most interesting part of the visit was the Predator program, which is a joystick controlled plane with a camera that can fire missiles from a remote desk, thousands of miles away from the target.

Not surprizingly, the Air Force is a pilot culture, and they're loathe to let the unwashed steer a plane - so the Predator must be navigated by fully-trained pilots even though videogame skills are practically all that's required.

• the_long_tail