Bianca Bartz
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 Sense Networks Macrosense by Sense Networks could substantially change the way you live your daily life. Imagine a GPS that didn’t just tell you where you are or where your programmed destination is, but a GPS in your phone that actually predicts what you want to do and where you want to go. Sounds scary, but that’s the concept behind Sense Networks, a software analytics company in New York founded by Gregory Skibiski and Tony Jebara. “We can predict tourism, we can tell you how confident consumers are, we can tell retailers about, say, their competitors, who’s coming in from particular neighborhoods,” Jebara says of Macrosense, a recent tool they developed. Another recent tool is Citysense which maps where people are going, like night clubs or restaurants. Most cell phones today come with embedded GPS, and while most people assume the information disappears as soon as they have their results, Sense Networks wants to remind companies they can gain insight into consumer behavior and predict future trends to determine things like smart locations for offices, retail or restaurants. Meanwhile, ad agencies learn to target their marketing better. “Consumers who have iPhones or BlackBerrys can sign up for the service, which does not ask for personal information,” the NY Times says. “Over time, the software will learn their patterns and recommend places they might like to go, or show them where other people with similar patterns are going.”
 Sense’s models were developed initially from sources like taxicab companies that let it look at location data over such a period. Sense also uses publicly available data, like weather information, and other nonpublic sources that it would not disclose. “We had three-quarters of a billion data points from just one city,” Mr. Skibiski says.
Mr. Jebara’s statistical models interpret those patterns and look at whether they correlate with things in the real world, like tourism levels or retail sales. The algorithms are complex.
(nytimes)References: nytimes 1 Comment: on GPS That Predicts Your Behavior |
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