National Experience Sampling Project

Mobile phones and privacy: media attention

2010-04-15T13:28:00.001-04:00

Here's a good example of the type of privacy/media characterizing that a
NESP program would need to be very careful to avoid:

"Mobile that allows bosses to snoop on staff developed. Researchers have
produced a mobile phone that could be a boon for prying bosses wanting to
keep tabs on the movements of their staff."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8559683.stm

Use of audio snippet sampling

2010-03-22T14:32:00.001-04:00

Here is a NYTimes report on a study using the technique of electronically sampling audio snippets to learn about how people are feeling by tagging words.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/talk-deeply-be-happy/?src=me&ref=health

Workshop on Facebook Research Ethics

2010-02-06T17:12:00.000-05:00

This workshop on "Research Ethics in the Facebook Era" has some thought provoking position papers for anyone thinking of using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for research purposes.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi/ethics-cscw2010.htm

Real-time search

2009-12-23T09:59:00.001-05:00

Article about the value of real-time search, which is searching of real-time sources of information such as Twitter. NESP could be setup to provide similar real-time data streams, except for researchers. How might that change the nature and speed of research?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/business/25ping.html

Creating maps and location-based databases

2009-12-23T09:57:00.001-05:00

Google offers free navigation apps

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/technology/companies/29gps.html?_r=1&hp

The interesting thing here is that Google is no longer licensing data from TeleAtlas or Navteq. They are generating it themselves. Access to the appropriate location-based databases is becoming increasingly valuable.

Mountains of data

2009-12-23T09:56:00.001-05:00

An article about training students to work with the mountains of data that will be generated in the future (from systems such as a NESP?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/technology/12data.html?_r=1

Using phones to infer social relationships

2009-09-16T15:42:00.001-04:00

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?

2009-03-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

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

2009-03-17T17:40:00.000-04:00

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"

2009-03-16T12:48:00.000-04:00

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

2009-02-12T22:52:00.001-05:00

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

2009-02-10T21:46:00.005-05:00

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

2009-02-10T21:46:00.003-05:00

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

iPhone HR monitoring

2009-02-10T21:46:00.001-05:00

New phones are making additions of interesting health-related sensors possible that could trigger EMA. Here’s an example (although it is not clear if/how this would work for EMA, given the iPhone does not allow background applications … a necessary condition for EMA).

http://www.appleinsider.com/blogs/iphone/09/02/09/iphone_gains_heart_rate_monitoring_and_fitness_tracking.html

HIPA: hindering health research?

2009-01-29T11:54:00.000-05:00

Here’s a letter from the Association of Academic Health Centers on the (negative) impact of HIPAA on running research studies.

http://www.researchresearch.com/media/pdf/AAHC3135.pdf

HIPPA rules would clearly need to be studied carefully before any NESP deployment.

Electronic Frontier Foundation effort to open phones to applications

2009-01-24T00:16:00.001-05:00

Here’s an interesting effort to push for legislation to open up U.S. phone platforms.

http://freeyourphone.org/

Cell phones hindering research

2009-01-20T14:54:00.000-05:00

This great article from the Washington Post highlights the struggles that
some epidemiologists are facing

From the article: "The National Center for Health Statistics reported that
in the first half of last year, 16 percent of American adults lived in
households that have only cell phones. This was up from 7 percent three
years earlier, and rising rapidly. The federal government's main tool for
measuring the health habits of Americans, the Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System (BRFSS), uses the telephone to interview a nationwide
sample of adults (470,000 this year). Historically, interviewers called only
conventional telephones, as all but the 2 to 3 percent of households with no
phones at all could be reached through them. But that's not remotely true
anymore."

Cell-phone only users are "different" from everyone else, creating a sample
bias if they are excluded.

Interestingly, the article notes that one reason including cell phones is
that federal law requires calls to cell phones to be hand-dialed. The fact
that people must pay for calls is also problematic for some.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/11/AR2009011102
082.html

Releasing datasets and preserving privacy

2008-11-18T09:22:00.002-05:00

This is an old but thought provoking New York Times story describing how an AOL database of search results where names of searchers had been removed could still be used to track down a single individual by analysis of search terms. It points to the difficulty of identity blinding a database that may contain complex sources of information that provide hints at location.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?_r=2&oref=slogin

Tracking flu trends using massive numbers of searches on Google

2008-11-18T09:22:00.001-05:00

Google is using keyword searches from its home page to track flu trends across the country. http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Particularly interesting is the graph on this page (http://www.google.org/about/flutrends/how.html) showing predictions from search terms versus data from the CDC.

This is clearly an example of where large amounts of data allow new types of data mining. It has also been flagged by some privacy groups (see http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/does-google-flu-trends-raises-new-privacy-risks/)

Using mobile phones to report voting irregularities

2008-11-01T10:07:00.001-04:00

This election phones will be used to report voting irregularities. NPR, for example, is participating in Twitter VoteReport, a nationwide initiative to get voters to report problems using Twitter, text messaging, or just normal phone lines.

This is another example of a large, real-time feedback project that, just a few years ago, would not have required a much larger amount of infrastructure to develop. (The benefit of twitter or text messages is that they can be more easily automatically processed than voicemail messages).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96432101

http://twittervotereport.com/

Apple considering small in-home wireless sensors?

2008-10-23T13:23:00.001-04:00

Here's information on an Apple patent (from a former MIT'er) for little
wireless sensors that communicate with phones about activity in home/life:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/23/apple_proposes_tiny_rf_modules
_for_ever_present_connectivity.html

These types of sensors could be used for automatic activity/context
detection that would provide powerful information for context-aware
experience sampling.

At MIT we've been considering this type of thing for a while and see great
potential. See
http://web.media.mit.edu/~intille/papers/abstract-MunguiaTapiaIntilleLarson0
7.html for a paper on some practical issues of developing such sensors.

Eight Trends to Watch in Mobile Computing

2008-10-23T13:17:00.001-04:00

From Accenture, a short article on Eight Trends to Watch in Mobile Computing
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6q43y5

"Mobile computing, communications and services are reshaping our world.
Here are the top eight mobile technology trends to watch-trends that
will affect usage patterns and industry positioning in the years ahead."

Of most concern/interest for a NESP program is probably, "Mobile security
gets serious," because inevitably this makes it harder to write background
apps that run all the time that gather/share sensor data.

Accelerometers in phones

2008-10-22T11:19:00.001-04:00

If there was ever any doubt, the many new applications being created for the
iPhone that use accelerometers will ensure that future phones come with
accelerometers built in. These two articles reference some of them.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2008-09-30-accelerometer
-iphone-wii_n.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2008-10-13-iphonegames_N.htm

Far more interesting stuff will be possible on the more open development
platforms, such as Android and Windows Mobile.

Easier development on Nokia Symbian phones?

2008-10-21T12:56:00.001-04:00

News on Nokia Qt developer toolkit, aimed at making development easier.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081020-nokia-releases-first-qt-preview-for-symbian-s60.html

“Nokia has released a developer preview of the open-source Qt development toolkit for S60, the company's Symbian-based mobile platform … Nokia aims to position Qt as a universal programming framework that can be used to bridge the gap between desktop and mobile software development and bring mobile applications to a wide range of devices using a single code base.”

Pew Internet survey on technology and families

2008-10-20T10:38:00.000-04:00

A new report with some information on mobile phone use in different
demographic groups:
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/266/report_display.asp

E.g., "A national survey has found that households with a married couple and
minor children are more likely than other household types -- such as
single adults, homes with unrelated adults, or couples without children
- to have cell phones and use the internet. The survey shows that these high
rates of technology ownership affect family life. In particular, cell phones
allow family members to stay more regularly in touch even when they are not
physically together. Moreover, many members of married-with-children
households view material online together."