Decius wrote:

Google sees the mobile phone as a ubiquitous sensor network.

This seems like the conventional wisdom, no? Recall, from June:

Citysense - Powered by Sense Networks

Citysense was built to show you where the action is, right now.

When the Mission or Soma is busier than normal – you'll know immediately.

Citysense is an application that operates on the Sense Networks Macrosense platform, which analyzes massive amounts of aggregate, anonymous location data in real-time. Macrosense is already being used by business people for things like selecting store locations and understanding retail demand. But we asked ourselves: with all this real-time data, what else could we do for a city? Nightlife enhancement was the obvious answer. This release is just a test, and we're interested in your feedback on how to make the application better. You'll find a feedback button in Citysense.

Lest anyone worry, remember:

According to Sense Networks, all the location data that it gathers from mobile phones, GPS and Wi-Fi is completely anonymous so privacy should not be an issue.

Of course, Decius would never worry ...

Noooooo problem ... don't worry about privacy ... privacy is dead ... there's no privacy ... just more databases ... that's what you want ... that's what you NEED ... Buy my shit! Buy it -- give me money! Don't worry about the consequences ... there's no consequences. If you give me money, everything's going to be cool, okay? It's gonna be cool. Give me money. No consequences, no whammies, money. Money for me ... Money for me, databases for you.

At last! We've rediscovered the path to economic recovery!