Comments on: Nokia is Crowd Sourcing Traffic Reports http://www.gypsybandito.com/nokia-is-crowd-sourcing-traffic-reports/ The wandering thoughts of a digital nomad... Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:20:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: CT Moore http://www.gypsybandito.com/nokia-is-crowd-sourcing-traffic-reports/comment-page-1/#comment-8135 CT Moore Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:39:30 +0000 http://gypsybandito.com/nokia-is-crowd-sourcing-traffic-reports/#comment-8135 @mike, what scares me is that the information is there in the first place. The problem, or course, starts with how a device that's registered to you has GPS. This is what I mean when I talk about how people trade privacy/security for convenience. If an organization (private or government) decides for whatever reason that they want to track me, it's that much easier. Information is power, and power corrupts. So the prospect of gaining access to that information can be really tempting. Just look at how Obama will have to do away with his Blackberry. Every choice represents a trade-off. I just don't believe that the average consumer is fully aware of the trade-offs entailed by the choices they make to (1) shop online, (2) use mobile technology, or even (3) use a third-party web-based email service. @mike, what scares me is that the information is there in the first place. The problem, or course, starts with how a device that’s registered to you has GPS. This is what I mean when I talk about how people trade privacy/security for convenience. If an organization (private or government) decides for whatever reason that they want to track me, it’s that much easier.

Information is power, and power corrupts. So the prospect of gaining access to that information can be really tempting. Just look at how Obama will have to do away with his Blackberry.

Every choice represents a trade-off. I just don’t believe that the average consumer is fully aware of the trade-offs entailed by the choices they make to (1) shop online, (2) use mobile technology, or even (3) use a third-party web-based email service.

]]> By: mike http://www.gypsybandito.com/nokia-is-crowd-sourcing-traffic-reports/comment-page-1/#comment-8037 mike Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:10:14 +0000 http://gypsybandito.com/nokia-is-crowd-sourcing-traffic-reports/#comment-8037 In the early days, yes this could be a tracker but as the volume goes up, becomes a google sized problem to match people to places. In terms of protecting privacy, i see that that is not so big an issue as the information that is needed is date-time, location & speed data. There is no need for any device identification Also, as a consumer of this data i am only really interested in motorway (i think the American equvilent word is Highway?) and when or where the traffic is doing 15% or under the speed limit, this further reduces usefulness of the data as a tracker. for me i see limited use in city centers (traffic is always slow in centers!) More important is that the format should be open, so that multiple services could recieve it and do cool stuff with the data. Alos by making the format open, other things can upload data to the service, thus opening the doorway for trending (which route planning software can take advantage of by suggesting alternative travel times (or to take breaks at certain time/places) as well as routes. In the early days, yes this could be a tracker but as the volume goes up, becomes a google sized problem to match people to places.

In terms of protecting privacy, i see that that is not so big an issue as the information that is needed is date-time, location & speed data. There is no need for any device identification
Also, as a consumer of this data i am only really interested in motorway (i think the American equvilent word is Highway?) and when or where the traffic is doing 15% or under the speed limit, this further reduces usefulness of the data as a tracker.
for me i see limited use in city centers (traffic is always slow in centers!)

More important is that the format should be open, so that multiple services could recieve it and do cool stuff with the data.
Alos by making the format open, other things can upload data to the service, thus opening the doorway for trending (which route planning software can take advantage of by suggesting alternative travel times (or to take breaks at certain time/places) as well as routes.

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