Using phones to infer social relationships

A paper on "Inferring friendship network structure by using mobile phone
data" suggesting the type of work on the horizon...

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/36/15274.full

Increasing Privacy Awareness?

Are typical web users becoming more aware of potential privacy problems?

At least in one survey, conducted by TRUSTe, "More than 90 percent of
respondents called online privacy a "really" or "somewhat" important issue"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/technology/internet/16privacy.html?_r=2&re
f=technology

Will phone users follow the same patterns?

Volunteering in 20 Min Chunks on Mobile Devices

Here is a great idea for using mobile phones to allow people to volunteer time for all sorts of tasks that it percolated to the top in an open competition for innovative “Changemaker” ideas. It has a NESP-like flavor to it, although with a focus on short-term (20 minute) tasks that people can quickly select and accomplish. This is in contrast to the NESP vision of long-term participation in medical research studies that researchers select the volunteers for.

Changemakers entry:

http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/15305

 

Project website:

http://www.theextraordinaries.org/

(There is some interesting information on the project website, everything from a nice intro video of the idea to links to the use of game mechanics for social media. You can also sign up for their newsletter)

 

 

Computer industry: Phones next "big thing"

More compute power and sensors in phones only increases the potential of  a NESP program, as long as more manufacturers doesn’t increase phone fragmentation and make programming phones (robustly) more difficult.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/technology/16cell.html?ref=technology

 

 

Emergence of international data plans

It was only a matter of time before better international data plans started emerging. AT&T has a new one for unlimited iPhone/SmartPhone data in many places. This is important because otherwise NESP applications might unwittingly transfer large amounts of data when someone travels. On some phones you can detect and prevent transfer when someone is out of the country, but even better is to have data plans where the NESP program can continue sending data and receiving surveys no matter where the phone user goes. They are expensive now, but perhaps will be more affordable down the road.

 

http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/popup/dataconnect-comp-table.jsp

 

Google Latitude

Not the first one, but probably the location awareness app promoted by the largest company to date, Latitude is generating some interesting responses related to privacy. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over time.

 

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/can-you-see-me-now/

 

 

Google Maps and disclosure laws

There is an interesting article out about how groups upset about a proposition passed in California have created a mashup using info from public disclosure laws with Google maps. The result is that opponents are then targeting people who contributed money to get the proposition passed. The article discusses the tension this creates between “political transparency and untarnished democracy versus privacy and freedom of speech.”

 

The solutions, legal or societal, to these type of privacy dilemmas would no doubt impact a NESP to some degree.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/business/08stream.html?_r=1&ref=technology