Briefs

Sandy Pentland, director of MIT's Human Dynamics Research program, has focused his work on that unlikely task: using gadgets as simple as a cell phone to better understand the quirks and patterns of human behavior.

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Pentland has tracked his subjects through their cell phones, which are carried by around four out of five Americans. Pentland spoke with Forbes.com about the benefits his tracking experiments could offer to society, the privacy problems they pose and how he hopes to strike a balance between the two.

Forbes.com: What is "reality mining?"

Sandy Pentland: Reality mining is about using sensors to understand human beings. The sensors could be security cameras, they could be devices that you wear on yourself, they could be cell phones. The point is it's about people. Data mining is about finding patterns in digital stuff. I'm more interested specifically in finding patterns in humans. I'm taking data mining out into the real world.

What kind of reality-mining experiments have you actually performed?

We developed this thing called a sociometer, a little badge that you wear around your neck that records your body language, your motion and your tone of voice--the tone, not the words. It gives us a nice little package for reality mining.

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