Cyber Space
computer "behavior" (co-evolution, automation, symbiosis), computer "minds" (computer software, simulation), cyber systems theory (holism, information, intelligence, interdependence, immunity)
"When Cell Phones Become Oracles" Wired News, Ryan Singel, July 25, 2005
[Jerry Paffendorf] Wired News has a great article on tracking and predicting human behavior with information collected via cell phones. The article centers around research performed by MIT Media Lab researcher Nathan Eagle, organized under the Reality Mining Project. Eagle gave out 100 customized phones to MIT students and researchers that he usedto log 350,000 hours of data over nine months including location, proximity, activity and communication of the volunteers.
According to 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.” The volunteers could also use the data to create diaries of their lives. Eagle notes, “"I can go ask it, 'How much sleep did I get in October?' 'When was the last time I had lunch with Adam?' 'Where did I go after that?'" On the topic of data-mining our lives, the article also mentions a book by Chris Stakutis called Inescapable Data. Stakutis says, “We want to have our life choreographed, cataloged, witnessed and archived. Now we are heading to a world where this is possible without effort … We are going to be a planet of 5 billion data magicians."
The virtualized models of our planet that Google and Microsoft are competing to build with Google Earth and Virtual Earth will progressively be used as fields to display this inescapable data. Jon Udell will give a presentation on the topic at Accelerating Change 2005 entitled Annotating the planet: Freedom and control in the new era of interactive mapping. Abstract: “The explosive innovation triggered by Google Maps produced a shock of recognition. We always knew that our meatspace coordinates would merge with our cyberspace addresses. Now that it's really happening, familiar topics—identity and privacy, grassroots collaboration and centralized control, ownership and use of data—will be newly refracted through the geospatial lens.”
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