Foursquare is an interesting application. It is relatively a new idea. Increasing number of mobile users using internet (thanks to 3G) and GPS needs new ways of getting most out of their mobile devices. GPS assisted mobile device users benefit of navigation and maps. Foursquare is not about navigation but is about the places you visit. Foursquare user visits different places (cafe, bar, restaurant, airport, etc) and comments on the service quality, foods, beverages, etc. The more you visit the same place, you become the mayor and might get special offers and discounts.
Submitted by Yucel Saygin on 26 July, 2010 - 08:18
http://foursquare.com/
"Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring
your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new thing"
Nice combination of social networking, twitter, LBS. No mention of privacy issues.
"By analyzing cell phone movements and online search queries, scientists can monitor traffic in real time and track disease outbreaks more efficiently, but at what cost to privacy? Computer scientists Tom Mitchell and Deborah Estrin discuss the pros and cons of crowd sourcing personal data."
Listen to the full story at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121615586
Submitted by Yucel Saygin on 26 February, 2010 - 09:36
"EPIC Urges Congress to Adopt Privacy Safeguards for Locational Data"
EPIC is very active in the US to pursue location privacy issues in US. Check out their statement
at http://epic.org/events/Locational_Data_Stmt.pdf
Submitted by Emre Kaplan on 18 February, 2010 - 00:18
Long time ago, i dreamed the cars will communicate and transfer traffic information to each other. Moreover, they can tell their current location and destination to the system and the optimal path will be returned from the server. Even if it is now our research project, it has more historical reasons why i stick to it instead of resting for a couple of days.
Submitted by Yucel Saygin on 2 January, 2010 - 16:58
I was watching Future Fast Forward at CNN the first day of 2010 after a long night. One of the questions raised by Campbell Brown, (CNN Anchor) was “What will the world be like in the next 10, 20, 30 years?”. Towards the end of the program the futurist Watts Wacker made really interesting comments about privacy. Here is the transcript I found from : http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1001/01/ec.01.html
