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Cell Phone Data Predicts Movement Patterns

Posted by samzenpus on from the where-you-going? dept.

azoblue writes "In a study published in Science, researchers examined customer location data culled from cellular service providers. By looking at how customers moved around, the authors of the study found that it may be possible to predict human movement patterns and location up to 93 percent of the time."

3 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Sleep and Work? by Dayze!Confused · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seeing how 66.67% of the time I am either sleeping at home or at work it shouldn't be too hard to fill the other 27% with commute/grocery shopping.

    --
    "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
  2. Really a surprise? by Xgamer4 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this really a surprise to anyone? I'd wager the day for the vast majority of people goes something like "wake up, work/school, home, sleep", with the removal of work on Saturdays and Sundays and the possible addition of church or something on Sundays. It's not really that hard to predict something that consistent.

  3. Re:This was done last year by trentblase · · Score: 3, Interesting

    More importantly, people tend to CALL from predictable places. As others have pointed out, most people spend the majority of their time at home and work. But on top of that, these studies only look at where calls are made, not where people actually are. So while I may spend a lot of time out and about on the weekends, I still make the majority of phone calls when I'm at home (not at the movie, shopping, gym, etc..)