Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Live with or without

Who would have thought cell phones would be our worst enemy. It is known pinging can pinpoint our general whereabouts due to closest signal. This has been a great tool in our society good or bad. Text messages we send or receive along with sites we may visit are trails of data left behind.


In the future this data will be used to learn more about human behavior. It is called reality mining. While all the upgrades are nice it will soon lead to more information to be gathered. Researchers feel that by studying the way we do things will benefit us in the long run.


In some situations this may be true. Companies use reality mining to collect data about their customers. This could help better serve them. We must protect ourselves and become aware of vulnerabilities we face everyday.


March/April 2008
TR10: Reality Mining
Sandy Pentland is using data gathered by cell phones to learn about human behavior.
By Kate Greenehttp://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=emerging08&id=20247

Posted by cantwait at 2:49 AM

2 comments:

  1. FDancyMarch 9, 2009 at 6:00 AM

    In a way that is kind of scary but I can see how it can be a good thing as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trey EveretteMarch 11, 2009 at 5:17 AM

    As with most technology, this has its pros and cons.

    The government can already track us down to our physical location if they wish. The question is, "Do we want the cell phone companies to know where we are?" And if they know, who else can find out?

    Some cell phone services already allow you to download an application to the phone that tracks the physical location on the phone and displays it on Map Quest. Pretty cool technology when you are trying to catch a cheating spouse or buck wild teenager but down right dangerous in the hands of a criminal.

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