MIT project uses cellphone data to predict activities
If you want to find out how Big Brother can use your cellphone to track your daily activities, see who you're hanging with, and even predict what you're going to do next, take a look at MIT's Reality Mining project. Using 100 volunteers armed with Series 60 phones (like the Nokia 6682, pictured), the Nokia-funded project tracked such data as incoming and outgoing calls, Bluetooth activity, and approximate location (via celltower ID data). According to research director Nathan Eagle, once enough data was collected, it was possible to predict volunteers' activities with an 85% accuracy rate; for example, Eagle's system could predict whether or not someone would go out for the evening based on their call volume. Eagle is already in talks to license the system to at least one company that plans to use it to keep an eye on employees, and he's also started a social networking company, which will presumably have more benign goals. But you'll never know, will you?
[Via Wired News]
