Dav Yaginuma, my brother-in-law, exported his iPhone’s location data and, using the open source iPhone Tracker modified the settings to create very fine grained view of his whereabouts. I would have thought an aggregated view such as the one above would give a strong signal to where he lives and works but I guess he is too nomadic to be that predictable.
At best, the pattern resembles a colony of ants swarming spilled sugar water which, in some sense, describes San Francisco from a distance.
More visualizations like this on Dav’s site, Aku Aku.
I personally think this location data is really useful and describe it more as a feature than a security violation. For those concerned with what big companies know about you, check out my earlier post, Location Traces as Art
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