PUBLIC MARKS with search predict

Reality Mining defines the collection of machine-sensed environmental data pertaining to human social behavior. This new paradigm of data mining makes possible the modeling of conversation context, proximity sensing, and temporospatial location throughout large communities of individuals. Mobile phones (and similarly innocuous devices) are used for data collection, opening social network analysis to new methods of empirical stochastic modeling.

The original Reality Mining experiment is one of the largest mobile phone projects attempted in academia. Our research agenda takes advantage of the increasingly widespread use of mobile phones to provide insight into the dynamics of both individual and group behavior. By leveraging recent advances in machine learning we are building generative models that can be used to predict what a single user will do next, as well as model behavior of large organizations.

ShouldIBackupMy.com – A project for Open Hack 2009

Cristiano Betta talks us through how he built the wonderfully funny "ShouldIBackupMy.com". In this project he uses The Guardian Content API to give him information to "predict" the longevity of things you might be concerned enough about to back up.

Why so much connectivity? After all, PC penetration is abysmally low in Africa. The answer is cell phones. At the beginning of 2008, there were a quarter of a billion mobile subscribers on the continent

Meanwhile, concern is growing over a number of new lakes formed by the force of the earthquake. Thirty-four lakes were created in the province when landslides blocked rivers, Xinhua news agency said. Eight held more than 3 million cubic metres of water and one lake, less than 3km (two miles) from Beichuan town, had doubled in size in four days. Officials are monitoring the lakes and have sent experts to assess them, the agency said. Forecasters predict heavy rain in the region next week, which could further raise the water levels in the lakes.

We’ll all have a date with our maker someday, but Amy Winehouse just can’t seem to wait. She can write and sing a beautiful tune, but for some reason Amy has landed in a self-destruction derby. It is even rumoured that Amy and Pete are keeping the Colombian economy going. She simply looks like a cat’s asshole before it’s been dewormed. Amy is on her way out and as the world is profiting from this decline we thought it only fair that you should profit from it too. Guess her final breath and be crowned Mr. Or Mrs. Death. Winner will be rewarded with a iPod Touch.

I liked the final Namespace spec, even though it wasn't what I had originally argued for, but when you have a spec that almost *everyone* ignores or gets wrong (XSLT and SOAP excepted), it might be time to acknowledge that the problem is the spec instead of the implementors. I predict that the use of XML Namespaces will be an ongoing problem for Atom, even though it's not Atom's fault.