Category: Uncategorized

I am increasingly troubled within my own work about the imprecise nature of time use questions in surveys. We know that broad questions like \”how much time did you spend using email in a typical week\” are inherently unreliable. Time-use diaries are the gold standard, but they are difficult to analyze and very demanding of participants. I am starting to explore ways to use new technologies to automate the collection of both social network data, the use of media, and exposure to different media content. This article from the Globe and Mail recently came to my attention. It is about a pager size device that picks up inaudible sounds transmitted as part of radio and TV broadcasts to record exposure to different media. Of course it only gets exposure, not attention. Now if only we could find something similar to accurately record time spent using other media, such as email and Internet use, in context with participant\’s location and what they were doing online (reading CNN vs playing games).

Most of the literature on surveillance focuses on how government and corporate entities use ICTs. David Lyon has done some of the best work in this area, and Steve Graham recently published an edited volume, Cities, War And Terrorism, with many good pieces. However, there is another perspective, the implications for everyday ICT use on the surveillance of members of our personal networks, that is less often discussed. The exception, is the work of Nicola Green, one of my favorite articles by her is \”Who\’s Watching Whom? Monitoring and Accountability in Mobile Relations\” in Wireless World. Nicola points out the very real importance of the ubiquitous question \”Where are you\” in every mobile conversation. What has me thinking about all this is a cleaver little video short called Call Register, a good example of the impact of new media on surveillance within and with our personal networks. It is also worth pointing out the growth of recent tracking services for your teens and loved ones: article.

A busy week for local location technologies. Carlo Ratti, a colleague from my former department at MIT is doing some interesting work on real-time mapping of WiFi users on the MIT campus: CNN article. You can see a real-time image of users of 802.11 hotspots on campus here. In addition to aggregate data, MIT WiFi users can choose to make their individual identity visible on a map. Carlo has also been doing work on real-time visualizations of cell phone network users in Austria: Press release. The images are stunning – both visually and socially: Graz in real time. Exciting example of how location aware services can be used and visualized. Hopefully no one figures out how to hide a Wi-Fi device on someone and stalk them across campus.

In related news, Google has announced the release of Google Local for Mobile. A nice little Java application for your cell phone that streams Google map info. At the moment it does not use the location information (GPS or other service) available in almost any newer mobile phone to identify your current location. However, last year my students and I developed a similar Java application that pulled location from Java enabled cell phones – so we know it is coming soon!!! Much easier to hide a cell phone on somone and stalk them than with a WiFi device.