MagnetU is a $24 device that broadcasts your social media interests to other MagnetU devices around you according to the Technology Review Mims’s Bits blog.
If anyone else with a MagnetU has a profile that matches yours sufficiently, the device will alert both of you. I assume this would involve a connection back to some central cloud processor that would obtain your location information and already has your interests…
The MagnetU backend application also will allow you to link your Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter profiles by touching the devices together. The YouTube video is a bit predatory for my tastes, but there are some interesting possibilities for it in business.
What’s kind of funny is we were in a discussion with an entertainment/travel company almost 10 years ago about a device with similar capabilities, although that was before the age of smart phones so all the user interface had to be designed into the device.
It does make me wonder about how this would work inside a large business or at a conference. No more scanning barcodes…
