ETech: Mobile Phones Reveal the Behaviors of Places and People

[Quinn managed to scoop me blogging about Tony Jebara's presentation! But after I chatted with her, we both agreed that I should continue with my blog post and see if I can augment her post a little.]

Tony Jebara's presentation "Mobile Phones Reveal the Behaviors of Places and People" really opened my eyes to what amazing things you can derive from large data sets. Tony co-founded Sense Networks which specializes in taking GPS and mobile phone location data and deriving as much useful information as possible from it. Sense Networks works with mobile phone service providers who collected data from users who opted in to have their data be collected and mined. All the data they receive from the service provider is GPS location data -- no personal information at all was ever made available to Sense Networks.

(continue reading)