A few hacks, all to do with using Bluetooth proximity in interesting ways by Michael Coffey (github | @eartle) and Jonty Wareing (github | @jonty)

ProximRadio

ProximRadio watches for local bluetooth devices with their names in the format "lfm-USER", or for bluetooth mac addresses previously registered with it, and generates a Last.fm radio station with the intersection of all the users music taste. It works rather well.

There are two implementations of ProximRadio, one is a hack that uses the existing Last.fm client, the other is a new cllient entirely.

PresentRadio - http://github.com/eartle/PresentRadio

PresentRadio is a QT4 application using the open source Last.fm libraries, it has metadata views and muchos dataporn provided by Echonest. It looks out for local bluetooth devices and will seamlessly switch to the new station when new people arrive/leave without interrupting the track.

http://mobbler.co.uk/picture%201.png

http://mobbler.co.uk/picture%202.png

http://mobbler.co.uk/picture%203.png

Proxim.fm - http://github.com/Jonty/Proxim.fm

Proxim.fm is the prototype for PresentRadio, it's a cross-platform python daemon that performs the same duties as PresentRadio but without a GUI - it instructs the Last.fm client to play the intersection radio. It works perfectly, the only disadvantage is that a) it's in python and not exactly user friendly, and b) it cannot tell when a track finishes, so will retune as soon as the presence state changes (although this is quite fun).

http://jonty.co.uk/bits/mhd-stockholm/proximfm.png

Blobble - http://github.com/Jonty/Blobble | http://jonty.co.uk/bits/blobble

Blobble is a solution to the problem of scrobbling music you listen to with friends. It consists of a website that authenticates against Last.fm and presents an API to Blobble clients.

Blobble clients watch for bluetooth devices registered with Blobble, and when a track is scrobbled to the Last.fm account associated with the client they call the API. As soon as this happens, Blobble automatically replicates the scrobble to all the accounts of the Last.fm users in the area registered with Blobble.

This means that if you sit at a friends house listening to music, it will automatically be scrobbled to your profile with no interaction from you. But there's no reason why your local cafe couldn't enable you to scrobble their music too...

There's an example cross-platform client called Blobbler in the Blobble distribution, again, it's in python. You just tell it which Last.fm account to watch and run the thing in the background.

PresentRadio also has support for Blobble by default. Boom, it just works.

This is the main Blobble interface, nice and simple like it should be:

http://jonty.co.uk/bits/mhd-stockholm/blobble.png

Here's a screenshot of "electrichamster" scrobbling a track:

http://jonty.co.uk/bits/mhd-stockholm/blobble-mainuser.png

Blobbler spotting "electrichamster" has scrobbled something and it needs to scrobble to people in the area:

http://jonty.co.uk/bits/mhd-stockholm/blobbler.png

And here's the result:

http://jonty.co.uk/bits/mhd-stockholm/blobble-user1.png

http://jonty.co.uk/bits/mhd-stockholm/blobble-user2.png

 

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