I really don’t know how to classify this one, but here are several possibilities:
- Invasive
- Loss of personal privacy
- Big Brother comes to the party
- Big Brother tells everyone where the party is
- Avoiding the crush
- Avoiding traffic backups
- Finding the party
And the list goes on.
Basically what is happening is that signals from cell phones and GPSs are processed (a little magic there) and their locations mapped. Large concentrations of signals show where there is traffic congestion, a party, or some other event.
For a demo, visit CitySense, though you will need a Blackberry (or, soon, an iPhone) to actually be able to use the results.
For details, visit Columbia University’s news site.
[...] people raises legal concerns in a number of circles. Though this does not directly tie back to my blog of tracking population movement in traffic, going to parties, etc., which is concerned with aggregate data as opposed to tracking individual people, one has to wonder [...]
[...] 07 2008 In an earlier blog I wrote of web sites that track population movements through GPS enabled devices like cell phones, and how you can use that information to see where the [...]