East vs West: twitting [un]happiness

tags: emotion, source, map, 10x, psychology, process

2 + 2 = 4

2 wolves + 2 rabbits = 2 wolves

1 dog + 1 dog + 1 dog = 1 Cerberus

for more creature arithmetic see http://www.flickr.com/photos/preshaa/3847027500/

It looks like the Japanese have implemented our old "Emulet" idea:

Wearable Sensors Help Analyze Behaviors of Factory Workers

DSS Co Ltd, a Japanese firm that edits and processes digital maps based on survey data, started a service of recording the actions of factory workers for long hours and visualize them.

Softbank Mobile, Japan's biggest cell phone carrier, ...has a plan to equip the same amount of elementary-school students with GPS phones.
...the purpose this time is ...to test how GPS-enabled cell phones can help track the spreading of an infectious disease and stop it from becoming a pandemic.

The idea is really close to what we discussed during the last session of the Spring '09 Principles of Invention class. Specifically, we talked about enabling users, e.g via twitter, to report sneezing and coughing incidents around them. Coupled with GPS data, this information would provide a fairly accurate map of a swine flu pandemic. Furthermore, a P2P networking technology could even allow for "tagging" disease carriers.The system could also track people who live in "dangerous" zones and intend to travel within the disease incubation period.

Of course, this will only work if people tell report their true observations. Long term, sensors in public places, e.g. subway cars, might do a much better job at tracking the spread of a contagious disease.

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Below is the "Original map by Dr. John Snow showing the clusters of cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854."

A brief history of Paris Metro maps at Creative Review.

You can see how the designer tries to create a highly informative map that would work for most of the people. Now, that we have moved into a digital world, we need map that work for every one. Individually. With the right information at the right time.

An up-to-date swine flu map.

Dr. Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, put together a live map of H1N1 flu.


Please protect yourself and others.

Google makes mashup easy to make

a new feature of its maps service that it plans to launch on Thursday called My Maps. It lets anyone create mashups by essentially pointing, clicking, dragging and dropping. I used a temporary log in and password since the feature hadn't publicly launched yet, but normally I would log in using my Google account information.

Simplifying user control enables greater flow of information. Users can easily add his/her own software "tools" to Google's ecosystem. Each tool has a built-in control dependency on Google Maps ( source), which creates a long-term control point in the mashup application space.
Control is made easy and its elements are given away - a powerful approach to control point creation.