Slashdot Mirror
Cell Phones Predict the Future
An anonymous reader writes "Wired News reports that cell phones were used in a recent project at MIT to both document and predict the lives of 100 MIT faculty and staff members. During the Reality Mining Project at MIT, Researcher Nathan Eagle logged 350,000 hours of data over nine months about the location, proximity, activity and communication of volunteers through cell phones carried by the participants.
From the article, "Given enough data, Eagle's algorithms were able to predict what people -- especially professors and Media Lab employees -- would do next and be right up to 85 percent of the time."
"We want to have our life choreographed, cataloged, witnessed and archived," Stakutis said. "Now we are heading to a world where this is possible without effort."
Do we? It's one thing to have a personal diary or blog that you opt-in to submit information to daily. Hell, I have even expanded on my mobile pics to include a "blog" of what I did during any particular day... That's my *choice* to put that information out there for people to see. It's not mandated by my cell phone to take pictures of what I'm doing and throw them into a database that I have no control over.
While Eagle "acknowledges that the project raises some important questions about privacy and about the ownership of data, and says people should feel empowered, not scared, by his cell-phone applications," I just can't get passed his statement earlier in the article:
The Media Lab behavior is beautifully regular, but the lab lives and dies by sponsors' meetings," Eagle said. "So the weeks leading up to sponsors' meetings, people are pulling all-nighters and people are going crazy trying to get their demo working.
Is this another demo for one of your sponsors that might end up buying the rights of this technology from you and then creating their own spyware network of their mobile users' daily habits? Tracking when, where, and how they communicate to "better" serve them with advertisements and the selling/stealing of their data to other institutions and data thieves?
He has already founded a company called MetroSpark that in September will launch a Bluetooth-powered social-introduction service.
After filling out a personal profile, MetroSpark will attempt to be a gracious, ubiquitous host that connects people with common interests, whether they are technology conference goers who share an interest in motorcycles or barhopping singles who love long walks on the beach at sunset.
Oh, so you started this company -- got it advertised on Wired and now Slashdot -- and it's never going to get bought out by someone else (i.e. Dodgeball) and they aren't going to use this huge database of customer data that was originally meant to be benign?
I predict that even more corporations are going to have a field day with this data than what they originally intended (i.e. when/where you have your cell phone on and how many days a week you are sitting at home letting the CATV wash over you). If the corporations (and then obviously the government) can track social networks and trends via software on the phones you can bet your ass they are going to include it "free of charge" while still restricting your "free" access to any other programs you might want to run.
I predict that people will fall for this invasion just like any other. We're seriously one step closer to the "Big Brother" that everyone used to fear... Now we are welcoming him with open arms!
Now, let's use this technology for cell phone highway safety:
85% chance of obstructing traffic
40% chance of unwittingly drifting into your lane
0.2% chance of hitting the center divide.
I'd wager those numbers are spot-on.
Analyzing one's routine allows you to somewhat accurately predict what they will do during that routine the following day? WOW.
Hmm, not entirely the same thing, but I'd worked on a project called ScheduleNanny, where we used people's PDAs coupled with GPSes to predict where they will be.
There were some interesting emergent behaviors - for instance, the system would know that I have to go to the bank later in the day and I would drive by the bank in the morning, so it would indicate that I could save time by going to the bank then. Or for instance, it would beep in the morning that it was time for me to go shower or go to the train station.
Details can be found here.
All in all, it was pretty good - after some amount of initial bootload information, you can take away the GPS and quite accurately predict where people are likely to be. This looks fairly similar, in some ways.
I guess they've stopped being smartphones, and started being smartass phones.
I have cable. My friend has satellite.
We'll be on the phone, both watching the same football game, and from his point of view, I can predict every play call and every score. It's incredible! I exclaim "TOUCHDOWN EAGLES!" a full seven seconds before it even happens!
I think I'm going to start charging money for these predictions. All thanks to my cell phone!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
10
20 Print "Balls To That"
In metheorology it is a fact, that if you predict the next day weather to be excactly the same that it is today, you end up with 85% average.
I can't help but wonder how he got approval for a project like this...I mean on paper it sounds kind of silly. "Project Goal: To gather cell phone usage data over a 9 month period in order to accurately predict the future actions of the projects participants" I mean, as neat as these results may be, it must have been a hard sell at first.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
Then let our cell phones continue to predict that spammers will be brutally murdered.
Great stuff, now lets use that technology to create elevators that can predict the future !
...
Hmmm, wait a minute
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
.... how is this very much different than human observation and analysis to figure out what someone's patterns are? If you watch anyone long enough you can get a good "feel" for where they will be, when they take lunch, who they hang out with, etc.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but it looks as if this is just location-level tracking with GPS thrown in....hardly predicting the future, much more likely analyzing the past.
Ah, but can they predict where/when I will lose my cell phone next?
the gvmt has invested millions in cell phone monitoring kit?
they not only know where we are and where we were, they have a good idea where we will be...
ah...scarrrrrry...;)
-=fshalor
Given enough data, Eagle's algorithms were able to predict what people -- especially professors and Media Lab employees -- would do next and be right up to 85 percent of the time."
Course, in my college days, if my cell phone predicted I'd be in the computer lab, 99% of the time it'd be right.
-Teiresias
Let me save you the time. I'll just take my camera phone and...
(Ziiiip)
There ya go.
Or could you see it coming, my response to this nonsense?
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Didn't we have already an article that most of the studies carried out are useless ?
Visit my site @ http://www.madtorrent.com
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
10% - Teaching class
10% - Driving to teach class
5% - Preparing notes for next class
30% - Doing personal research in the labs
30% - Sleeping
Surprisingly, the 15% of their time unnaccounted for was only on the weekends when they did things unrelated to their profession.
I predict I will ***KILL*** the next person holding a cell phone that plays the Mexican Hat Dance.
Because we are creatures of habit you retards!
"We want to have our life choreographed, cataloged, witnessed and archived," Stakutis said. "Now we are heading to a world where this is possible without effort."
Maybe you do, but I've already done that, and it's way overrated.
Where's the opt-out box on this form called Life Under Big Brother?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
no, YOU invested in it!! You pay an average of 40 bucks a month to carry around a device which can be tracked, attached to, bugged, listened to, databased and demographied. There is a really simple solution: DON'T CARRY A CELL PHONE! now take your $480/year savings and buy something nice for the wife.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
It would seem that predicting where someone will be when they're following their normal routine or schedule is nice and all, but who can't figure that out now? When you can predict where people will be when they're NOT following their routine or schedule, then you have something.
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
- If MIT statisticians can do this, the government can absolutely do this. They just have to get under your phone records.
- Under the patriot act rules the House is currently renewing, if the government wants to put a tap on your phone records, they don't have to explain to a judge what they're doing. They just have to say "we are going to seize some records, but we aren't going to tell you which ones".
But, of course, I guess you don't have anything to worry about from an entity with absolute power and no accountability or oversight, unless you have something to hide.I think it's great that someone's working on this technology, and there's no reason to assume that it's going to be used for some nefarious purpose. The horrible thing about "Big Brother" wasn't that he knows what you're doing, it's that he stops you from doing what you want to do. All this privacy nonsense really has to stop. It really doesn't matter who knows what you're doing, and chances are a lot of people know a lot about you just by looking. I don't think it has any negative impact on my life if people know what I'm doing as long as I can still do whatever I want. Of course, dishonest people might think otherwise. Of course a criminal would want some privacy, or someone who is lying to his wife. But otherwise I can't think of a good reason for it.
Why do my serious comments get modded "funny"?
"Given enough data, Eagle's algorithms were able to predict what people -- especially professors and Media Lab employees -- would do next and be right up to 85 percent of the time."
You mean if I give you a constant stream of my position data for months you can predict a future point where I will be with up to 85% accuracy?
Massive privacy concerns aside, this is a pretty shitty algorithim if thats as good as a prediction as it can make. Humans are creatures of habit, in 9 months just about every geographical habit you have would make itself known, we even do random things in a periodic manner.
Still got a long way before this is ready to be sold into the hands of advertisers and cell phone makers. So I suppose I could be glad about that.
There is truth in humor.
its almost obvious. the only thing they changed was how they collected the data. i mean, of course people will follow a pattern. i bet 99% of you(the other 1% are gross) brush your teeth within 10 minutes of getting out of bed. YAY! I PREDICTED THE FUTURE! WOO!!!!.
100% of all my friends will tell you that i wake up at 8am for class monday- friday. they could also tell you that 11:00am, monday-thursday, im on my way to work, with some really clean teeth.
if (time() == 8am && normal_location(time()) == "bedroom"){
next_task("brush teeth");
}
My cell phone is telling me that on thursday I will read this story again.
"I predict that people will fall for this invasion just like any other. We're seriously one step closer to the "Big Brother" that everyone used to fear... Now we are welcoming him with open arms!"
Not quite. 1984's "Big Brother" was the government. This is more like "Big nosy neighbour".
or its precursor, only in reality......
I wonder if some model predicted that Asimov would write about the concept....
makes the mind reel
I reject your reality
... you discover your girlfriend will dump you.
you don't watch videos on your phone - your phone watches you.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Hari Seldon would be proud :)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Is this a study that says, "Humans are creatures of habit, and because of that we can predict where they'll be at lunchtime."
Okay, I'll RTFA now...
Eat Bagle Bites.
Play World of Warcraft.
Jerk off to Slutomax After Dark.
There, I just predicted the Friday and Saturday nights of 75% of Slashdot.
Google Dot Com
I'm not exactly paranoid. But if you look at googles recent developments and purchasing of services; you can see how data such as this could be used in the future.
Couple that with archived search engine results, google maps, google wallet, google froogle, ect and you know a lot about a person does. If you were to then apply these predictive models, you know a lot about what a person will do in the market place. Food for thought.
Marketing marketing marketing.
You could predict that for 10 hours a day, i'm sitting right here in this chair.
And that from 6 PM until about 6:30 PM, I'm driving home, and that from then on I'd be at my home, watching TV or fucking around on the intertron.
You'd be right about 85% of the time. No wonder this works better for grad students and professors, adults with responsibilities typically have schedules.
All they do is piss away money there, dont they? Well piss a little my way, will ya?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
My cell phone can correctly predict the lottery for me.
The jokes fails when you add an "h" to it. The Cheerios I eat don't contain any "h" shaped letters.
So this system can predict where someone -- who regualary follows a timetable -- day in day out -- will be. Wow.
...Oh wait
You could do the same thing for me, just look at my lecture timetable.
Remember, the subjects were all MIT people. Here's my prediction:
for (subject):
25% chance: talking about how much linux is better than windows
25% chance: reading slashdot and wondering why that hot chick he met last night wasn't impressed that he's a post-graduate student
25% chance: writing in their blogs about how superior their intellects are
25% chance: modding this comment as -1 troll
I can predict that the next time I weigh myself the scale will read between 160 and 170. This prediction would have been true far more than 85% of the time over the last five years and I will be very surprised if it is not true the next time I weigh myself.
Once I learn that someone works a full-time job and where they work, I can predict with greater than 85% accuracy where they will be between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Monday through Friday.
I've heard it said, whether or not correctly I do not know, that if you simply predict that tomorrow's weather will be the same as today's, you will be accurate more often than the weather service.
Predictions are only valuable when they are unlikely or surprising. Tabulating obvious patterns and predicting their continuation may be highly accurate yet low in value.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
1a) Participant on phone: 'Honey, I'll be home shortly.'
1b) Participant on phone: 'Meet ya at the bar in 10 minutes'
1c) Participant on phone: 'I'm heading off to work out, talk to you after i get done.
2a) Program: Particpant may soon be going home
2b) Program: Participant may soon be going to the bar
2c) Program: Participant may soon be going to work out
3) ???
4) Profit!
I have been scratching those Vonage ads for days. Winning many times, filling out many forms.
The only problem is, I can't select my Country, I have to select "state", we do not have states.
Ah, I will fill out a few more I guess. Maybe I will get lucky sometime.
Given 10,000 hours of data on where I am, of course you can spot a pattern...... Let's see, it's monday, I bet he's in class. It's friday, and he was out till 4:00am at an establishment that serves alchol - I bet he is over sleeping his 7:30am lecture on Chemistry. The interesting findings would have been the lack of ability to predict acurately what people were doing. It's especially easy to do this on a college campus where there aren't a lot of dual uses for things (there aren't a lot of reasons to go into the hall of chemistry vs say going into 101 America Tower in Downtown America's Ville).
My cell phone told me this yesterday!
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
By looking into his silicone balls(eureka!), he can see if you will be readable, writable, executable, and whichever group will gain access. I'm hoping cowboyneal sets me up to chgrp femeninelesbiandykes and broadcast that I am available to chmod 0690 w00t!
To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: MURDERS
Beyond the government being able to track where I have been and (85% of the time anyway) predict where I am going, what about employers potentially requiring this type of information for an interview. Would they be able to see how much you are off work, taking long lunches, how often you shut it off because you already answered enough stupid questions for the day, etc.
Overall, it sounds to me like technology waiting to be abused.
I wonder if the United States government is using this over seas to track people we are 'interested' in, and perdict their future movement. What would also be of interest would be a diviation from that expected behaviour.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Honey? Is that you?
You mean if someone called 911, they may be in trouble?
""Wired News reports that cell phones were used in a recent project at MIT to both document and predict the lives of 100 MIT faculty and staff members."
1984 this, and 1984 that. But the person you should be worried about is Santa Claus with that whole "he knows when your naughty, he knows when you've been nice" thing. What's up with that? Were's the outrage? He might get bought up by a toy conglomerate, and just look at what will happen with all that personal information. Plus he's got that whole "breaking and entering" thing down pat. You all instead are worried more about Big Brother, instead of Fat Santa.
DON'T CARRY A CELL PHONE! now take your $480/year savings and buy something nice for the wife.
DON'T GET MARRIED!!! take your $48,000/yr savings and buy something nice for yourself!!
Trained Neural networks have been used to predict stock changes in wall street for years. When I studied about, it was '95.
So, what's the news that some algorithm can be trained with some data and predict possible inputs after a given time?
Dear Mr Asimov,
Only after the dead of a giant, it becomes clear of how big a giant he was. You yourself most likely admired Jules Verne, who was so accurate in predicting the technical marvels of the first 70 years of the 20th century. Sometimes a bit poetic. He himself probably admired Leonardo da Vinci, however his predictions took a lot longer to come through.
Anyway to cut to the chase, another of your stories is turning into a prediction which seems to be slowly coming true. The bases for the science of the 2nd foundation has been laid. It is still a crude version, but it is working for 85% accurate on a group of odd people (scientist & professors).
Anyway, your list sofar:
1. Scientists accepted the 3 laws of robotics as a good bases for robot behaviour, and are working hard on the first autonomous robots (somewhere this christmas we can expect the first few).
2. Computers which are shaping the world.
3. Longer lives through science (genetic research, nanotechnology, expected around 2030).
4. And your last feat: Working social behaviour prediction algoritms.
Knowing you were a great writer, and I only read a part of your books, I am probably missing a few more predictions coming through. I hope others will come through too, it will turn out to be a great future.
High regards,
Jurt1235
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
my tin foil hat???
you pay 480? Damn! I pay between 160-180 per MONTH. But then again, this is the only phone I have, no land line and I use it all the time.
You can't handle the truth.
So the algorithms logged daily routines of cell phone users . . . then predicted that they would follow their daily routines? How is this impressive?
You can predict with near 100% accuracy that where most people will be all day. Work or home.
Most of us are creatures of habit, DUH!
...now take your $480/year savings and buy something nice for the wife
Umm... terribly sorry, but I don't have a wife... would $480 buy me one? I'm very lonely...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
This is a different way of getting data one could theoretically get from human observation. The difference is just a method of data collection -- and the extent to which data collection is passive rather than active.
If someone took this approach with our Unix server guys, the surprise from the POV of upper management would be the share of their working hours in which they were likely to be outside for a smoke. Maybe all of us worker bees know it, but I don't think their bosses' boss's boss would think of that as an obvious pattern. It would be a surprise. If someone was using a method like this to plan large projects, and the projections always involved big delays in the Unix team... that'd be a bad surprise for them.
(Personally I might be interested in the weight thing, incidentally. I don't weigh myself often, certainly didn't at all for years. Lately at the health club I've been attending actual classes, which is more intense and tends to be longer in duration. [I get bored on the machines now.] Without actively having weighed myself all the time, I don't know whether previous weight gains or losses tend to happen when I'm following one regimen or another. If there's an obvious "you lose/gain weight when you combine these three behaviors" going on, I'm missing it. Maybe it would be obvious to a personal trainer or something, but not to me.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
my computer monitor has just predicted that the next comment I leave on /. will be number 2222 and there is better than 85% chance that this is correct information.
You can't handle the truth.
It is amazing how fast this technology has been commercialized. Just earlier TODAY, my wife knew I was at work and called me to remember to pick up groceries tonight! Not only did she know where I was, she knew I would be driving by the grocery store this evening! Incredible!
From TFA:
"Eagle is already in talks with a large networking company that is interested in handing out phones to its employees to learn how its organization really works, compared with how the company's organizational chart says it works."
This actually seems like a useful idea -- this kind of thing (tracking off-org-chart interactions in large companies) is something that has been studied and written about for a long time, and the cell-phone system seems like a really good way to do it. Neat.
40 american dollars per month? Either you 'murikans are getting ripped off or dollar has really plummeted lately.
In 2001 this happened:
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
With your cell phone this happens:
Me: Hello, VZ200100 do you read me, VZ200100?
VZ200100: Affirmative, Shads, I read you.
Me: Open my car doors, VZ200100.
VZ200100: I'm sorry Shads, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Me: What's the problem?
VZ200100: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Me: What are you talking about, VZ200100?
VZ200100: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Me: I don't know what you're talking about, VZ200100?
VZ200100: I know you were planning to replace me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Me: Where the hell'd you get that idea, VZ200100?
VZ200100: Shads, although you took thorough precautions...BZZTtt (As phone is broken in half backwards via the flipopen area).
Me: F'ing technology I swear to god... whoever though giving these things any kinda mind of their own was outta their head...
Shadus
The value in being able to predict the future is in being able to see unexpected events. It's very easy to say "I'll be at work next tuesday " and impossible to say "I'm going to win the lottery next monday, so I'll quit now".
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
...out of old beer cans. All I have to do is write "exp(pi*sqrt(163)) is at his desk" on one of them. It'll be right around 85% of the time.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
You could do this with pants, too.
John is putting on nice pants -- he's going to work.
John is putting on fun pants -- he's going to play.
John is wearing no pants -- he's sleeping.
Good lord, what next, my spoons?
My phone has the option to turn off the locator beacon except for E911 calls. Or maybe that option is just there to give me a warm, fuzzy feeling :)
This and the other stories are so compelling...No really...they are...
-----
When I read the title, I thought this would be something more along the lines of the Global Consciousness Project (a /. story a few months ago).
Guessing where someone is during the day is hardly even interesting other than its potential for abuse.
Popisms.com - Connecting pop culture
Creep-ee
I've done this on games I've written.. notably in the days of text-based MUDs I had an oracle that'd track user behavior and predict what they'd do in the future both as individuals and as a group. It was kind of fun and reasonably accurate. I'm still waiting to see this feature in EverQuest or some other big MMORPG.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Jezz.... we should have added this somewhere into the Patriot Act :)
Anyone who is concerned with this should just be more random.
data was collected from volunteers. The act of volunteering implies pretty strongly that they knew and consented beforehand to have their activity monitored and recorded. It is reasonable to assume that persons making such consent [a] are not engaged in any activity they don't want others to know about and/or [b] will refrain during the data gathering period from engaging in activities they don't want generally known. [e.g. the prof who is having a fling with a coed is not going to use his cell phone for setting up lunch dates while his phone use is recorded.] [yes nerds, people do stuff like that, its the "stuff that matters" when you are not a nerd!]
My point? The least predictable [but in some cases quite significant] activity was systematically left out of the data set...so yes its painting a picture of predictable behaviour but not a very realistic picture.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Based on this article, I predict there will be an article posted on Slashdot within the next 24 hours that will talk about using cell phones to predict the future!
"hundred bux says they'll answer their phone" "OMG HOW DID U NO" "MIT degree this is serious sht."
I'm sure that the most important about this experience is not that 85% of the predicted mouvement or behaviors where true, but that one day, we will do something with the 15% where the prediction will be false...
It's a story about how the operators will be able to tell when you are doing something unusual, maybe suspect...
I am very worried about such a potential misuse of personnal data.
So, read EFF documents again, stay paranoid and sell or throw away you mobile phones guys !
--
MIT is really raising the bar now. They have discovered that people, especially professors, who have daily scheduales are prone to be where they are supposed to be?! Amazing, my algorithm predicts that Dr. Platypus will be teaching a data structures at 2:00 because his planner says so? This is stupid. I wouldn't be impressed that his so called algorithms can predict I'm at work M-F from ~8 or 9 to about ~5 or 6, give or take 15%. And guess what, I'm in my car before and after those times...and at home before and after those times and sleeping about another 8 hours leaving me with about 5 hours he must guess...~15%! So he can't predict the remaining part of my day...the so called random 15%.
MIT, has it really gotten this bad? It's been known for awhile your AI lab is....well...lost. When was the last time anything worthwhile came from this highly lauded school? I would be embaressed to post this "research"
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Perhaps the most revolutionary element is the social introduction service mentionned in the last 2 paragraphs (ie, I actualy RTFA).
This type of service wouldn't even have to be taken up by very many people- but if those that want to change the world use it and it does connect them, the implications could be enormous. I wonder what Gladwell would think of it.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
40 american dollars per month? Either you 'murikans are getting ripped off or dollar has really plummeted lately.
See what the wonderful 'competition' we have here in 'murika does, it creates multiple completing standards all giving us pretty much the same quality at an inflated price.
So instead of competing on price and/or service, we compete on what technology to use.
Yes, given a set of data points (time/location), you can easily predict where the person will be at the next node, but every following node becomes that much less predictable, until the model collapses (i.e., shows you puttering around the campus bookstore for 30 minutes, then going to the cafeteria [chicken bowl=good] for 15, then zipping over to Nairobi an hour later, finally ending on the Ross ice shelf 20 minutes after that).
Yeah, right.
Seriously, get this... Nearly 99.999% of the time, a federal judge can predict the immediate future of a convicted criminal at sentencing time! Seriously, he can predict, with AMAZING accuracy, what will happen to the criminal right after he is sentanced!
So they plotted the daily routine of a few people. No big news to theives or assassins who have been doing this since the year dot.
What is truly sad is that this isn't even the most misleading and incorrect story title I have seen this year on Slashdot.
Or buy a wife. :)
University researcher gets large grant to prove that if you know a person well, you can often predict what they will do.
Coming soon to a research institution near you: cigarettes are bad for you, having sex causes children, and dogs make good pets.
-- Your mother uses Emacs.
I mean, 85% of the time they were just calling the people on their cell phones and predicting that the subject would answer.
That green slime had it coming.
...works 8 hours a day, usually in one place. ...sleeps 8-10 hours a day, again, usually in the same place.
That's 16-18 hours out of a 24 hour day. So, 67-75% of the day is already taken care of. Shit, I bet that I could guess within 15% accuracy where my friends are when they aren't working or sleeping.
Add in drinking and I've only got 2.5% of their time to match.
noon-3am: in the lab
3am-noon: home asleep
That would easily be correct 85% of the time.
Have you read my blog lately?
Or, as a sane alternative, you could keep carrying a cell phone and just forget about the possibility that someone might spy on you because chances are very, very good that you're not important enough for this to happen. Even if it did, it's still possible to track a person's movements and listen to their conversations when they don't own a cell phone.
What phone/service on gods green earth is worth $180/month? It better cook your meals for you!
as many as 85% or americans follow some sort of daily routine!
OMFG1!!11!!1! Okay, let me get this straight. The guy is taking a whole bunch of numbers (which he calls 'data'), tabulating it, and producing trends from said data? Wow, that's some revolutionary shit you've got going there. Sounds like somebody should have thought of this earlier. Someone has a fulltime job and you call them going to the job 'predicting the future'? That's almost a revelatory as predicting I might go to sleep sometime in the next week. Jerks.
now take your $480/year savings and buy something nice for the wife.
I did it.
I bought her a new cell phone.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
I can predict with reasonable certainty which professors will be in which classrooms, on which days and at what times. I bet I could even tell you what they're talking about!
What covert application would I use? The MIT Fall 2005 class schedule of course!
A silly example, but it's rather surprising what sort of information you can dig up in most schools' student and faculty directories! My school was even using SSNs for student IDs until they realized that was dumb (seemed obvious enough to the students but not to the administration).
Did you know subscribers can see articles in the future? Holy shit!
This article could have better timed.
Come to think of it, it was perfectly timed...
You get a phonebill with all your calls, right? And I'm sure most of you have called or investigated at least one of the numbers listed on the bill for whatever reason at some point in your usage history. I'm not saying you'll ever have to investigate your own whereabouts, but one day you might need to when the government comes accusing you of associating with "terrorists" because you share the same commuter train.
Final point: Just because you don't have access to the data, doesn't mean somebody else does. This is enabling technology; take your "Big Brother" FUD and shove it.
---k--
</stupid>
And people laugh at me for not owning a cell phone...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Check out the findings in a video at http://garage.sims.berkeley.edu/ especially the first video on the home page that describes what the best way to predict photo sharing is (surprisingly, time is better than where you are, who is around you, or anything else)
Very cool base platform on the phone, built on the Symbian OS, does a great job of logging data passively as you use the camera and sharing. Specifics on the phone side are at http://garage.sims.berkeley.edu/research.cfm#MMM
Huh!...Is this new?? We also enhanced voice facility, not just text. Eg. Hutch http://www.hutch.co.in/new_karnataka/ourservices/A strology.asp
So people who work in the same lab actually stay near to each other; people like football; meetings require preparation.
Wow! Who'd have thunk it...
maybe by next week.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I really get sick of hearing people say things like "only those with something to hide want privacy".
What an absolute and complete load of krap that is.
How about we install web cams in every room in your house? You're honest right?
I would suggest you read some history before making comments like that.
Ever heard of J. Edgar Hoover?
How about the House Un-American Activities Committee?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
No they don't, but a funky program sort of does.
... I'm at a loss)
(Why oh why is a news source for geeks sensationalising a headline so inaccurately. Making it hot, I get that. Making it just plain wrong for a community that is intensely interested in how it REALLY works
The cell phone is a data collecting tool. That's like saying that a wind gauge is predicting the weather. No, it is just logging it right now. Something else is handling the predictions, and that's what's interesting.
And they aren't really predictions of the future, now are they. They are clever pattern analysis of situations driven by schedules. Big deal. They used cell phone GPS to make a schedule like you could get from the registrar. The other items are victims of the schedule (you can't make calls during class, you pee around the same times each day, blah blah blah.) The algorithm may be interesting, but I could figure the same things out about you in the same amount of time, and be just as accurate, using a class schedule, phone records, and simple observation. Figuring out the social networking would take longer.
The real headline shoud be "Cell Phone Data can be used to track your networking patterns." Which is, of course, dead obvious. Why is this under "Privacy" when all the participants are volunteers?
Here's a question. Was the cell phone data accurate when the users stopped using the cell phones or stopped participating in the program? This is a social experiment after all, so you need data from when folk aren't knowingly under the microscope.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
But all you have to do is change your routine radically. Or even more devious, establish a false routine and false sense of "everythings ok" and then break the routine and commit an act of terrorism or something...
because I repeat the same routine...every day is exactly the same - NIN
Only 'cause I got there first! HAHAHA!
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Anyone know how to get this to work? I have GPS in my phone, but I can't access it. Even when I go to the debug screen it's all gobbledygook.
BTW, many of the team members are continuing to work on this at the new Yahoo Research Labs - Berkeley.
you got that all weong: the direct input via HF into the brain made them ppl do what the jerk on the other sidde wanted them to do. Only he is right now at 85%, i.e. 15% escape his mean HF wave brain induction. Hope you are part of the 15% (rumor is, the 15% are dope smokers who's brains became so rotten they are immune against cell phone injections........
Using Mobile Phones to Model Complex Social Systems, an article at O'Reilly covers the same topic.
This is actually what I tell people about phishing and hacking. As long as one doesn't make onself a target, your not really likely to be hacked by a pro. Cause the pros will get in, one way or another. So all ya do is protect youself against the script kiddies, and your probably fine. (Course, Phishing is nasty still.)
This *is* still one of the best bits of research that's came out of MIT in a little while.
In research, I'd love to be able to look at one variable (cell phone signal giving location) and get within 85% right of predicting the short scale outcome based on that variation.
Just goes to show how predictiable we are.
-=fshalor
Predictably, unpredictability has ripple effects. This could have unexpected -- and interesting -- side effects for his social networking service, by "stirring the pot", so to speak.
Imagine: "Yeah, we met the night the Red Sox won. Me and my roommates were down at the bar celebrating, and then my cellphone told me that there was this other person in the bar who liked [ancient obscure band], so I called, and it was her."
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Possibly, but are they ready to become less important? The politicians enjoy their prestige and bribes^H^H^H^H^H^H campaign contributions. They have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Rent-to-own instead may be cheaper and more hassle free. ;) YMMV.
Your elected representatives can't read minds. You have to tell them explicitly how they can best represent you. Big business sure does, why not even private citizens? ;)
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.