Cell Phone Data Predicts Movement Patterns

azoblue writes "In a study published in Science, researchers examined customer location data culled from cellular service providers. By looking at how customers moved around, the authors of the study found that it may be possible to predict human movement patterns and location up to 93 percent of the time."

Traffic lights

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they find a way to program those (!@#) traffic lights a little better with this!

Wow!

[Beelzebud]

Imagine that. If you study someone's daily routine you can "predict" where they will go. Call me shocked.

Re:Sleep and Work?

[Cryacin]

I'd never trust a statistic I didn't make up myself.

Re:Traffic lights

[Arthur Grumbine]

I'm a civil engineer [xkcd.com], you insensitive clod!

Re:Uh huh...

[dgatwood]

Well, 85% of the time, it will be red. The rest of the time, it's sort of a rust color as we pull it out of the river because you were talking on the cell phone and missed the "bridge out" sign.

Am I close?

Re:Sleep and Work?

[kerrbear]

If they track my wife's phone, they'll notice she spends 93% of the time in her desk drawer. Why the heck do I pay for her phone when she never has it on her!?

The science of stalking!

[mykos]

BRB...this girl I used to date will be at Subway in five minutes. Time to casually bump into her.

coverup getting desperat.

[Cr0vv]

More and more we see stories like this, if you can connect the dots. this is a NASA coverup for Planet X, pure and simple. Fireballs almost every day or at least reported on every week, fallin' out of the sky. it'll be happening more and more, then NASA will fall silent. They do not tell the truth of what's out there, if you don't believe this: your programmed. Crow.

Non experimental physics

[DrYak]

Seeing how 66.67% of the time I am either sleeping at home or at work it shouldn't be too hard to fill the other 27% with commute/grocery shopping.

I predict you're in a non-mathematical field, perhaps banking.

I can also predict that he's not an experimental physicist and has no access to instant-teleport technology either. ...and he might also be a little bit slow when he walks between his house, work place, shop and car (or other vehicle he's using when commuting).

Re:Sleep and Work?

[miggyb]

Switch her to a pay as you go contract?

I believe those are called "hookers." Oh wait, you meant the phone.