Technology Review - Published By MIT
Advertisement

Smart Badges Track Human Behavior

Continued from page 1

By Kate Greene

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

smaller text tool iconmedium text tool iconlarger text tool icon


Waber says that the smart badges used in his experiment, which are about the size of a deck of cards but weigh less, can do more than just show face-to-face interactions and display a real-time social graph, and he has plans to look at the rest of the data to see what patterns emerge. For example, since the wireless radio can sense proximity and voice data, it's possible to infer when a person is engaged in a group discussion and who the expert is.

Also, accelerometer data could indicate activity at the conference. Waber says that if a conference organizer is running around, it could indicate that he needs help getting things done. This could indicate that the organizer should plan for more help at certain times during an event.

Some experts suspect that, within the next few years, smart badges won't be confined to conferences and events. "We think that eventually everyone will have a smart badge with them all the time: their cell phone," says Alex Kass, a researcher who leads reality-mining projects at Accenture, a technology firm. "Cell phones will transmit some kind of identity or interesting information to the people around you; you'll decide certain aspects of your identity that you want to broadcast in public," he says.

Comments

  • Privacy issues with smart badges
    Since this means that a person's movements and interactions can be tracked, I would assume that the participants were fully aware that they were under observation. This would address any privacy issues that could arise.

    Conversely, if they knew that they were under observation, could it have affected their inherent behaviour, and thus negate/influence the findings of the study?

    I would be very disturbed if this were done  without my prior knowledge. This includes the tracking of movement thru cell phones.

    Anybody thinking differently?
    Rate this comment: 12345

    deejay
    01/30/2008
    Posts:23
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
    • Re: Privacy issues with smart badges
      You raise excellent points. I would add that technology-related privacy concerns present two facets: unconscious (and mostly innocuous) individuals can be tracked, while malicious people and criminals can fake the system by showing artificial patterns and consequently masking their identity or assuming someone else's. (This, of course, happened long before the advent of digital technologies... as any fake passport will attest) :-) Paolo Magrassi
      Rate this comment: 12345

      pmagrass
      01/30/2008
      Posts:4
      Avg Rating:
      5/5

Log In

Forgot your password?     Register »
Advertisement

Videos

Microsoft's Many Multitouch Mice
Featured Content
Sponsored by:
White Papers

Twelve ways to reduce costs with SQL Server 2008
Find out how to reduce costs and get more efficient

Download

Total Economic Impact of SQL Server 2008 Upgrade
Forrester reports on increasing productivity and management capabilities

Download 

Achieving Cost and Resource Savings with UC
How Office Communications Server R2 and Exchange Server can make your business smarter and more efficient

Download 

The Compelling Case for Conferencing
Read how you can improve workload support and find IT efficiencies

Download

How Windows Server 2008 R2 Helps Optimize IT and Save you Money
Read how you can improve workload support and find IT efficiencies

Download

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Live Migration
See how Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V enable virtualization and Live Migration

Download
Advertisement
Subscribe to Technology Review's daily e-mail update. Enter your e-mail address

TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES
Advertisement
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2009 Technology Review. All Rights Reserved.