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September 19, 2008
Lumia

You are being recorded!



ESPOO, Finland – Is it good or bad that we can record what we do, where we are, and what’s around us – automatically?

If you have an N82, you are already recording more than you think. In addition to watching you send and receive messages and make videos, your location is being encoded in the photos you share. Ok, it’s an option you need to switch on. And, if you choose so, with a bit of software you can be streaming data into the cloud like a plane leaving contrails high in the sky.

Are you game?

Extending the viNe

In the Spring, Ms Jen was part of a travel project called Urbanista Diaries, which had her going to India and automatically uploading pics and stuff. But it seems like the Urbanista Diaries folks took the idea a bit further and created Nokia LifeviNe, which we wrote about earlier.

James pointed out she will be writing about her impressions of using such a tool. But the new news is that it seems we might be able to get James to use it too, but I have to follow up on that. More soon.

Would you want to do this too? Not that I can promise anything.

Biking through a stream

At the Nokia Open Lab, I met Eddie Codel who showed me a cool bike he had used. Basically, it’s a bike with an N95 and some Yahoo! software that takes geotagged photos and uploads them as you ride. You can read about it at Wired. The bikes are also solar powered. Totally geeked out.

So cool.

Reveal your soul through texting

Well, not really, but as things get digitized, it’s easier to mine them for info, such as who you are. It’s an old technique to match manuscripts to writers (say, an alleged Shakespeare text). ArsTechnica reports on folks mining SMS texts for proof of the sender by comparing the individual’s texting habits.

Scary.

Where will this constant observation lead? Will your phone be your biggest tattle-tale? Or will you use your phone to broadcast your life to the world?

I’ve got my thoughts, but I want to hear yours first.

Image from liberalmind1020. ‘Contrails’ metaphor borrowed from Mr Magical Nihilist.