Map As Metaphor In a Location-Aware Mobile World 178
mattnyc99 writes "Two weeks after the launch of Google Latitude, your inbox is probably full of requests and privacy advocates probably have even more concerns than they did at first. But some tech pundits are already seeing the bigger picture of a digital lifestyle based around the always-on, GPS-based mobile map. The NYTimes's John Markoff has a great piece in today's Science Times about the map as metaphor for a time when 'future systems will probably begin to blur the boundaries between the display and the real world.' Over at Esquire.com's Tech Therapist, Erik Sofge talks to the geek behind Latitude and offers a similar reality check: 'Latitude will be precisely as annoying as e-mail and social networking sites and cell phones themselves — and just as useful. What won't stop Latitude, or the wider rollout of location-based tracking, is bitching about it. These are juggernauts of free, culture-reorienting technology. And you and me, we are but posts on the massive Facebook profile of history.'"
Re:Hold on now (Score:5, Insightful)
I can turn it off but I can't turn off the people who turn it on. For example as a result of this connection there are now pictures of me on facebook. Meta data in image files will soon include positioning information. I don't get a choice about this information being distributed.
You won't see me signing up for this (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh sure there's the possibility that a corporation/stalker will be watching me at all times, but hey, stalkers sometimes have free candy (and they offer me rides in their van!).
Those who don't learn from history (Score:5, Insightful)
What will stop it, is people not using it. Or far more likely, people not using it in ways that the pundits and marketdroids insist it must be used.
History is full examples of technology that simply were not used. But more common are examples of technology being used in ways no one ever foresaw. I have no doubt that location-awareness will be ubiquitous in future culture, but I'm willing to bet good money that it WON'T be used the way the babbling class tells us it's going to be used.
Requests? (Score:4, Insightful)
>Two weeks after the launch of Google Latitude, your inbox is probably full of requests
Mine isn't. I don't think any of my friends have even heard of it. Not everyone jumps on the latest social trend as soon as it's announced. I still don't know anyone who uses Twitter.
Don't be naive (Score:1, Insightful)
GPS is receive only (Score:2, Insightful)
So why must a system which connects me with my friends be centralized? People who treat the internet like interactive TV don't know better, but techies should not get excited about centralized Google services. P2P is the future if you don't want to wake up to Google turned Microsoft one day.
Re:Requests? (Score:3, Insightful)
I still don't know anyone who uses Twitter.
In fact, I know more people who are aggressively hostile toward Twitter than who use it.
Similarly, I've never heard anybody breathe the words Google Latitude -- if they actually even know what it is -- without the inevitable follow-up, "Eewww! What a creepy thing! What, is it like so people can stalk you?"
I suspect that this is another of the occasional Slashdot stories that seem targeted squarely, and solely, at college students.
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who doesn't mind the small breach of privacy...
Privacy is like Pandora's Box - people are all too willing to open it up when they are blissfully ignorant of the consequences. But once they finally do start to feel the pain of having set their privacy loose on the wind it is too late to try to stuff it all back into the box again.
So choose wisely, just because you can't think of any particularly severe repercussions today doesn't mean there won't be any in the future once your data is already far beyond your control.
I already use mobile google maps (Score:3, Insightful)
...So google already has my location data anyway. This new service gives them no more information than they already had. Instead, it simply allows me to share that data with select parties when I find it convenient.
My wife and I plan to give "Latitude" a spin. She gets lost driving in the city now and then, and gets flustered. Being able to see her location in google maps, and give talk her through directions from there should come in handy.
Re:Hold on now (Score:2, Insightful)
And how would you know if some stranger saw you on the street? They'd know what you look like AND your location! And they could take your picture too if they like.
You've just got to do your best to stay out of photos, you can't control them.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
And all so entirely boring that people are happy to provide that information to you over a cup of tea.
That was just the beginning. And even that is far more than most people would be comfortable with absolutely *everyone* being able to know.
You apply for car insurance, and are charged extra because they analyze all the places your car has been seen parked and decide you are high risk...
You apply for life insurance, and are charged extra because they analyze all the places you have been seen, and decide you are higher risk...
You cut off the wrong jerk on the freeway, and your 6 year old daughter gets a threatening phone call at school...
What is your point?
The there is a MASSIVE difference between being in the background of a picture in someone's cubicle, and having every photo of you ever taken being indexed along with millions of photos of others and thoroughly data-mined. Anyone who suggests they are equivalent is an idiot.
A little data is meaningless. A lot of data becomes information. Facebook and Google have scary amounts of data to mine for information.
Re:Map as a metaphor? predictable! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody reads snowcrash anymore?
It's like so 1992.
Nobody reads philosophical texts anymore?
It's like so 1931.
The map is NOT the territory. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Yes. (Score:2, Insightful)
No, this is not in general true. Not all measurable risk factors are fair game for variable insurance rates. For example, an insurance company that explicitly used race as a pricing factor would find itself in trouble, no matter how strong of a correlation it could demonstrate between race and cost of claims.
More generally, it is unfair for insurance to be priced according to factors that you have no control over, especially if it's possible for you to move into a higher-risk group involuntarily. The best example of this is the practice of charging higher health insurance rates to sick people than to healthy ones. This in fact decreases the value of the insurance to all policyholders, because you have no control over which of these two groups you will be in tomorrow. You pay the insurer low fees while you're healthy so they will cover you if the time comes when you are sick, but then when that time you can no longer afford the coverage!
So, to take it back to the thread topic: data mining for insurance factors is problematic because it can lead to insurance companies pricing coverage on the basis of all sorts of risk factors that, despite being real, they shouldn't use.
Re:Yes. (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed. Some years ago your name and address would mean nothing. Now there are people looking through trash just to find your name and address.
Years later from those only-name-and-address years, more information becomes more useful. First telephone numbers, then email, then social networking info*, then who knows what comes next.
The scary thing with the availability of our information out there is not what product advertisers can offer us. It isn't also just about privacy. There's a certain level of safety risk (financial, even physical) that you lose as more information about you is available.
The parent poster gave an example of cutting off some bad guy on the highway may result in threats on your family. Who knows, you may rise up high enough at work there's enough incentive for some bad guys to take advantage by blackmailing, kidnapping, etc.
I can control what info I give out, but my picture in the background, my name on some lists, info mentioning me people post somewhere-- I can't control those from being tagged, put into one giant clipboard of everything about me, ready to be used for good or evil.
Not a decade ago, data mining are done by big companies, advertisers, etc. Today, any Joe Schmoe with an internet connection (plenty), enough jobslessness (plenty), and enough grudge against you, can do harm so fast you won't even see it coming.
Re:Yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't even have kids do ya? Anyone who put a 6 year old kid on the phone with someone claiming to be a parent would not be working with children for long.
Don't be naive. This happens all the time. I know. I have a six year old.
No... in order to do that we have to make a law, and enforce it. That aint free. It's paid for by "the rest of us" and we don't give two shits about your preference to be un-data-mined. Go live in the freaking woods. Become a sailor.
Really? That must be why Facebook's ToS change isn't a controversy... and why Google latitude isn't being criticized... and why people freak out everytime they try and introduce a national id card. All the rest of you who don't give to shits?
One day you'll thank those of us who care for saving you from your own idiocy. I won't hold my breath though.