2 cool mobile applications

Read in Information Week (in a paper about how AI is coming back in the technosphere):

SmartPhlow that turns a smart phone’s small screen and telephone keypad into a way to interpret traffic data. The software turns a large visual space–in this case, a map of the Seattle area’s roadways–into more manageable chunks of information. SmartPhlow pulls data from a Web service that delivers information about traffic jams that are likely to form and clogs that are starting to melt, then dices the large Seattle map into a 3-by-3 grid corresponding to the numbers 1 through 9 on the keypad. Hitting a key lets a user zoom in on an area. Hitting 0 triggers a “flyover”; the more complex or surprising a traffic pattern, the longer the user interface lingers over the area.

The second one is also of interest:

A second mobile application, called BayesPhone, to be described in a paper to be released at the User Modeling conference in July in Edinburgh, Scotland, pre-computes rules on a Windows computer about whether to put a cellular call through or route it to voice mail based on background analysis of a user’s calendar and the cost of interruption.

Information Week conclude that:

Both illustrate what Horvitz [researcher at Microsoft] calls “streaming intelligence” to small devices. “These devices human beings carry in their pockets can provide ongoing support. It’s not a wooden expert system you ask questions of or a search engine. It’s a live, dynamic thing you carry with you through life.”

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