As it turns out, using technology to enhance the dating scene at Harvard isn’t just a phase, it’s a lifestyle. After ISawYouHarvard (which debatably creeps your prospective dates out more than encourages them), Harvard Lunch, and various matchmaking efforts by HoCo and yours truly - The Voice, CS50 just rolled out CrimsonSpark, a quasi-”dating” website, as its latest creation.

Noice would like to think of CrimsonSpark as a hybrid of its precedents: less public than ISawYouHarvard, less creepy than normal online dating sites, and less random and seasonal than online matchmaking services. Read the amusing email below, which was sent out tonight over the Eliot House’s list from its creator, for more details.

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Dear Eliot,

Time to breathe new life into the Harvard dating scene. Not that we don’t find the dance-floor-makeout culture on campus to be charming, but maybe a change is in order. CrimsonSpark is a dating website, but not a “dating” website. That is, we aren’t matching you with a stranger based on some compatibility test or extensive profile. Because let’s face it- that’s a little creepy.

CrimsonSpark works on the basis that there is some one you know at Harvard and would like to know better. Maybe it’s a guy in section, a girl you eat lunch with or just some cute sophomore who you always say hi to. That’s where CrimsonSpark comes in.

How it works:

1. Register.

2. Start “sparking.”

“Sparking” entails searching for your prospective date, filling out a short checklist of date options you’d be willing to go on with this person, and then clicking submit. It’s that easy.

If there is a match (both parties spark each other), one or both of you will receive an email with the other one’s checklist, so you can get a sense of what that person is game for. All that’s left from here is the date itself. Of course, we don’t ask the other person out for you–the ball’s in your court.

We would love it if you could sign up and check out the beta version of the site that is up now at www.crimsonspark.com. Have fun with it, and get your spark on.

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Sounds worth a try? Spark away!

Is IvyGate/Yale/Gawker/etc. going to make fun of us for yet another online attempt to savage our non-existent dating scene? Probably. But would you rather go through unorthodox ways to have dates or stay sexually frustrated? Exactly our point.

At The Voice, we are avid proponents of using Web 2.0 to foster an online Harvard community. So, we were naturally thrilled when we found out that Harvard has partnered up with Foursquare, the popular video-game-meets-smartphone application. The application allows friends to visit places while sharing information about their favorites, all the while unlocking “badges” and earning points along the way. According to the Gazette, Harvard is the first university to team up with Foursquare. Currently, the Foursquare application is only available to iPhone and Android users, but a Blackberry application is being released soon.

Photo from the Harvard Gazette

No! It's really not like that!

NetworkWorld reports on SEAS’s recent $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build a colony of RoboBees, which are exactly what they sound like – robotic bees that fly autonomously and can model real-life colony behavior. Why all the buzz? Harvard’s official RoboBees website explains:

The collaborators envision that the Nature-inspired research could lead to a greater understanding of how to artificially mimic the collective behavior and “intelligence” of a bee colony; foster novel methods for designing and building an electronic surrogate nervous system able to deftly sense and adapt to changing environments; and advance work on the construction of small-scale flying mechanical devices.

While we probably don’t have to worry about swarms of RoboBees descending on the Yard anytime soon, researchers do anticipate that they may be used for artificial pollination, environmental and traffic monitoring, and search and rescue missions.

Image source here

Instant gratification.

Quadlings who meander around Boylston Gate at midnight waiting for the shuttle will have no sympathy, but for the rest of Harvard, waiting for public transportation is a giant pain in the ass. Now there’s an iPhone app to take care of our impatience.

Cambridge’s own Sparkfish Creative recently made MassTransit, the iPhone version of the MBTA schedule, available for download. T, bus, ferry–all major Boston mass transportation systems are now just a tap away. The best part? No internet required, as the schedule itself is stored on the phone’s memory and only uses Wifi or 3G for updates.

Can someone say sweet?