Forensics tools used for habitele project

Finally we decided to adopt forensics tools to extract data from the mobile phones. We shall use Oxygen Forensics suite 2012, a very powerful software, supporting 4200 phones models. What was important in our choice is the focus that we need on tracking the activity of the user with his/ her contacts from the phone book. Zokem tracker did not provide any information about that and emphasizes the tracking of apps activity (which is  the most valuable information from a marketing point of view). Of course, we'd like to have both types of data and we'll need to develop social sciences oriented applications to do that. Maybe this is what the CNIL (french regulation board on personal data and computing) will develop with INRIA (major research center in computer sciences). This is what I was told during an recent audition I had with this organization about personal data, that are not personal but relational in habitele's framework.

A social bookmarking system Pearltrees about habitele

We created a Pearl on pearltrees about habitele. This is the best way to share our documentation ressources and to let everybody contribute on this topic. You can join it here

Mobile communications and spatial distribution

Some papers were recently published demonstrating that the spatial distribution of mobile communications reflects the administrative borders (in Great Britain, for land lines, in Belgium, and in France). The research papers were based on the processing of millions of mobile communications using the zip code of the subscription bill or the most frequent local antenna used during the night. People seem to be amazed by the results and the prevalence of traditional spatial distribution, which means that they thought mobile phones were addressing an issue of mobility: we challenged that from the very beginning in the habitele project and these results confirm our choices. Mobile phones are more personal and portable than mobile. The mobility that is provided as a new paradigm is a social one by switching between social worlds we belong to.
The belgian study
http://www.briobrussel.be/assets/andere%20publicaties/en_129_brus42en.pdf
The french study
http://www.paristechreview.com/2011/11/15/telephone-portable-cartes/
The british study (from MIT Carlo Ratti's team, based on land lines)
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014248

Privacy on Facebook

Interesting to watch this dynamic display of the privacy features on Facebook. Open Privacy for all? Did YOU decide that?

Project Habitele selected by ANR

The "Habitele" project has been selected by the French National Research Agency ANR (call "sociétés innovantes") and will be funded starting January 2012. Great news! More details to follow!

Survey "our mobile planet"

A new survey (our mobile planet) by Ipsos, Google and MMA (mobile marketing association) on mobile uses. Data are available but what for if you do not have a theoretical framework to understand the process at stake? But let's use what we can in that survey!

How the personalization effort made by Google and by Facebook may place them as the gatekeepers of our preferences and of our social worlds, without giving us any grip on it. Watch this TED conference. How an habitele theory can help keep in mind the importance of the social worlds diversity which we are connected to and the importance of staying in control of our shifting and commuting power (open to other bubbles and not enclosed in our small bubble)