Fact 1.
I have a nexus 4. The phone has Jelly Bean Android operating system preloaded on it. Since it is a smart phone, smarter then most of the people around, it has all the bells and whistles like GPS, NFC, Bluetooth, WiFi and what not. And since I consider myself one of the tech savvy people I ring all the bells and whistle all the whistles. I use GPS for finding my way around, WiFi to save some cents on the internet, NFC for sharing playlists and Bluetooth for brushing my teeth (just wanted to see if you were paying attention).
Fact 2.
I go to work every day in the morning to the same place (yup some people do go to different place for working) and come back home in the evening. At around 6:00 PM I head to the Recreation Center to 'unwind after a hectic day of work', come back home and sleep at the same address. Everyday.
Fact 3.
I take my phone everywhere with me.
Fact 4.
Google Now is an app that is a part of your Android 4.2 experience. You can use it to ask your phone to search for restaurants around, look up a recipe, find what's the temperature outside. Almost everything that a 'human assistant' does this app can do, and can do it faster and it doesn't roll its eyes at you when it is acting on your 'requests'. The results resulting from these requests pop up as 'cards' when the app 'thinks' you might be needing them.
Observation
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This '6 Minutes to work' card pops up of its own volition at around 8:30 in the morning-the usual time that I leave for work. A similar card 'X minutes to home' pops up around 5:30 PM- the time I usually leave the lab. And around 6:00 PM so does a card politely telling the time it would take me to reach the Rec Center. For all my tech savvy I never set up either of these places as the place of my work, my home or the place where 'I go to unwind'.
Explanation
As I explained earlier I believe in 'ringing all the bells' I always keep the GPS on because it helps Google to provide me with accurate weather predictions and the events that happen around the town. However Google went a step further and observed (using the GPS coordinates) that I-like any other normal person was spending more than 90 % of my nights at the same place and in the morning I went to the same place (presumably the place I work at) and in the evenings I peroidically went to another place and came back within an hour. So Google using its knowledge of human behavior and some chunk of its huge data to ascertain that one of these places is my home, one is my work and one's where I go for 'unwinding'.
Conclusions and Comments
Its a pretty nifty feature isn't it? Google uses your coordinates to provide you with traffic information and what route to take and which street to avoid. You can save upto 10 minutes of your commuting time, and you can spend that time binging on burgers getting fat. How awesome is that?
Disregarding the rhetoric, let me tell you, how awesome I feel that is.
In my opinion it's a gross violation of my privacy. I agree that this information might be helpful to me but I never explicitly asked Google to store the GPS data of my movements. I feel like I am being spied upon, a private eye is keeping tabs on me, taking pictures with his hugely expensive telephoto lens. And he is doing that at his own leisure and he is doing that without being discreet.
Now tell me how awesome that is.
Adios.
PS.
I now know how to make Urad Chane ki Dal.
PPS
At times like these one is inclined to believe this.
