BLOG POST 1: Infrastructure Treasure Hunt

Use your laptop, cell phone, or other bluetooth device to collect 10 bluetooth IDs from busy places around campus. Take a picture of the screen to show that you really found these IDs. BONUS: Some people use Bluetooth IDs to send messages -- find a funny or interesting one.

I decided to set up the blue tooth device in the Illini Union since it’s somewhere that a majority of students spend their time during the day. I found that either not many people use Bluetooth devices very often, or they choose not to name them in a very clever way. Most of the devices that I found had generic, or pre-made names which kind of took away from the fun that I thought I would have by looking at all the different devices. Most of the devices that came up were University computers. Had I gone earlier in the day I may have found more student ID’s as well.

Bluetooth devices can relate to the characteristics of infrastructure in many ways but the three that I found to be most prevalent were durability, normally invisible, and path dependence.

I chose durability because Bluetooth devices are began as a way for people to share information in a faster more convenient way than say sending the file through email or putting it on a flash drive and sharing it that way, but has now outlasted all of that and is moving into completely new capabilities.
The next characteristic that I found to be important was normally invisible because Bluetooth technology is not something that people can see. When someone sends a file via Bluetooth to someone else they don’t think about the technology involved or how their device is connecting to the next one or how the file they want is being sent to their computer.
Path dependence is the last characteristic that I found to be important when speaking of Bluetooth because the technology has influenced new capabilities of the technology to be used. For instance, with an Apple MacBook Air computer you can turn on your Bluetooth and without needing a disc drive you can watch a movie that is in someone else's MacBook computer near you. This has become file sharing in a completely new way.

I chose to do my blog on Bluetooth because I wasn't terribly familiar with the technology but now that I know a little more about it I think I will be more inclined to use it from time to time.