Toothing?

I meant to mention something about the toothing hoax perpetrated by Galker’s Gizmodo last week, but I was feeling too irritable about the forthcoming Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie. At any rate, bluetooth devices are able to detect other bluetooth devices within approximately a thirty foot radius. I believe this is primarily so that your cell phone’s new wireless headset can find your actual cell phone, although I am definitely not a bluetooth technology expert. You would expect that some of the people at Wired and the BBC would be technology experts, however, but, according to Fleshbot, they reported on the toothing phenomenon presumably based just on posts in Gizmodo. The idea was that someone with a bluetooth enabled device such as a cell phone or PDA could find other devices in the area and the owner could send a message saying “toothing?” and then they could use the tech to arrange sexual assignations with strangers. The only bummer for lonely people attempting to hook up this way was that the whole thing was like an out of control April Fools joke and the world is not actually packed with high tech hotties looking for speed sex. Which is pretty humorous from the right perspective.