In my neck of the woods, it's rare to find someone that's not sniffling from allergies once spring is in the air. A mobile pollen alert a la Vodaphone is just what we need around here. Possibilities for other forms of sensors and alerts obviously abound.
To use a service like that there is a privacy trade-off though. From knowing "Where I am" which already makes us a little nervous phone companies would be a closer to knowing "Who I am". My allergy profile would be on their database.
It may be argued that our privacy is already severely if not irreparably compromised with Google's thirty five year cookie. It is now generally agreed that "You are what you search" and there was no covenant made not to act on such intelligence.
Google sits atop a platinum mine of data that sales and marketing types would sell their souls to get a hold of. What's to say that souls are not being Dutch auctioned as we speak ?
At least with a mobile pollen alert we'll be sneezing less and enjoying the season more.
I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...
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as for privacy, what the heck...they have my SSN for the credit check before they give me a cellphone...they know where my phone is all the time...what's the big deal with knowing my allergy profile...:-)))
and hey, [think i blogged on this sometime] when the privacy freaks are told "you've saved 10$ with safeway" today, they've effectively handed over every shopping habit to safeway in a nice little plastic card. sheesh! I for one, would gladly trade trend-capturing data for anything thats relevant. for all the spooks privacy freaks spread, gmail prolly is the best junk-free mail i've got.
The most they can do is encourage out impulse buys with teaser campaings. That is probably the state of the art at this time
Google has been path-breaking. They may well never turn evil as is their vision and use the power they have only for the edification of mankind but who can tell about temptation ?
lol peppy...yeah i haven't gotten any penis or breast enlargement mails in my gmail...yet...*touchwood*...:-))