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Your Phone Knows Where You Sleep

...And lots of other potentially useful things about the way we live

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 20, 2007 12:17 PM CST

(Newser) – Your cell phone knows more than it lets on. Most can tell where they are, for starters, and how close other phones are. Since most of us tote them everywhere, our phones could track or analyze movement patterns for huge populations. “This is obviously sort of useful,” says MIT researcher Sandy Pentland, a pioneer in this new field of “reality mining.”

The information goes beyond movement. Phone microphones can monitor your tone of voice, and the iPhone’s accelerometer can tell whether you’re sitting or walking. Pentland sees real-world applications, but he knows it sounds scary. “It could stop SARS, but there’s a big trade-off,” he says. We need “a new deal for privacy,” he says, without sticking our heads in the sand.

[Images (3)]

[Videos (1)]

"Today's cell phones are on us all the time, and they come with hardware that can act as sensors for your environment. For instance, if Bluetooth is turned on, then the phone can see and be seen by other... (Shutterstock.com)

Professor Sandy Pentland's "Reality Mining" theory suggests your phone might know more about you than it lets on. (Shutterstock.com)

"Just look at a cell phone. It knows where you are, and this is obviously sort of useful. But the generalization is that maybe it can know lots of things about you. Take your Facebook friends as an example.... (Shutterstock.com)

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Your Phone Knows Where You Sleep