Anonymous flirting

This time last year lots of online media outlets got suckered into covering a new craze called toothing, where tons of people, mainly Brits, were allegedly hooking up for anonymous sex by using the broadcast features available in their Bluetooth phones.

The idea was that you created a saucy message and tried to send it to anyone whose phone was set to receive. It’s technically possible, of course, but devious scammers went one further by setting up a chat site where “toothers” were supposed to be gathering to discuss their conquests, reinforcing the impression this was a cult phenomenon in the making. It later emerged that the whole thing was a hoax – no one who actually scored in this manner could be found.

Undaunted, Nokia has jumped into the fray with its clever (and free) Sensor application. For now, it works on only a handful of the Finns’ phones – but this could be big.

Sensor creates a personal, portable “home page” – chiefly a photo and brief message – which your phone constantly broadcasts over Bluetooth. Anyone else with Sensor can view the page – and decide to send you back a message. Anonymous flirting ahoy!

If Nokia can quickly bring Sensor to as many of its phones as possible, soon we could have whole nightclubs and bars full of people pimping themselves via their phones.