Now you can share more than ever before with your friends. Stock image from sxc.hu

Officially known as Cityware, although already earning an online reputation as Facetooth, this technology is the brainchild of scientists at Bath University in the UK, who have blended Bluetooth with Facebook to produce a physical map of where your webby pals are at any time.

Cityware works by using various nodes that search the local area for Bluetooth devices, grab the IDs for these devices and then match them up with Facebook profiles.

Bingo! You know who it is across the street, what they did on Friday night and their favorite flavor of icecream.

Nodes have been set up in Bath, University College London and the University of California in San Diego. More nodes are planned for Sweden, Hong Kong and Sydney. 

If not incredibly useful, Cityware is at least very interesting. It’s part of a multidisciplinary research project into distributed systems, human-computer interactions and pervasive computing in urban spaces.

The team is also working on an application for the wildly popular virtual world Second Life. 

Cityware is funded through the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, with support from the Cityware industrial partners.