GPS Tracking of Twitter posts may enhance monitoring of food safety at restaurants

A satellite image showing sample tweets
that indicated food poisoning and marked as such
by the nEmesis system developed by University of Rochester
researchers.

As reported by escience news: A new system could tell you how likely it is for you to become ill if you visit a particular restaurant by 'listening' to the tweets from other restaurant patrons. The University of Rochester researchers say their system, nEmesis, can help people make more informed decisions, and it also has the potential to complement traditional public health methods for monitoring food safety, such as restaurant inspections. For example, it could enable what they call "adaptive inspections," inspections guided in part by the real-time information that nEmesis provides.

The system combines machine-learning and crowdsourcing techniques to analyze millions of tweets to find people reporting food poisoning symptoms following a restaurant visit. This volume of tweets would be impossible to analyze manually, the researchers note. Over a four-month period, the system collected 3.8 million tweets from more than 94,000 unique users in New York City, traced 23,000 restaurant visitors, and found 480 reports of likely food poisoning. They also found they correlate fairly well with public inspection data by the local health department, as the researchers describe in a paper to be presented at the Conference on Human Computation & Crowdsourcing in Palm Springs, Calif., in November.

The system ranks restaurants according to how likely it is for someone to become ill after visiting that restaurant.

"The Twitter reports are not an exact indicator -- any individual case could well be due to factors unrelated to the restaurant meal -- but in aggregate the numbers are revealing," said Henry Kautz, chair of the computer science department at the University of Rochester and co-author of the paper. In other words, a "seemingly random collection of online rants becomes an actionable alert," according to Kautz, which can help detect cases of foodborne illness in a timely manner.

nEmesis "listens" to relevant public tweets and detects restaurant visits by matching up where a person tweets from and the known locations of restaurants. People will often tweet from their phones or other mobile devices, which are GPS enabled. This means that tweets can be "geotagged": the tweet not only provides information in the 140 characters allowed, but also about where the user was at the time.

If a user tweets from a location that is determined to be a restaurant (by using the locations of 24,904 restaurants that had been visited by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City), the system will continue to track this person's tweets for 72 hours, even when they're not geotagged, or when they are tweeted from a different device. If a user then tweets about feeling ill, the system captures the information that this person is now ill and had visited a specific restaurant.

The correlation between the Twitter data and the public inspection data means that about one third of the inspection scores could be reliably predicted from the Twitter data. The remainder of the scores show some disagreement. "This disagreement is interesting as the public inspection data is not perfect either," argued co-author Adam Sadilek, formerly a colleague of Kautz at Rochester and who is now at Google. "The adaptive inspections could reveal the real risk, which is currently hidden for both methods."

This work builds on earlier work by Kautz and Sadilek that used Twitter to find out how likely a specific user was to have flu-like symptoms, and also to find the influence of different lifestyle factors on health. At the heart of all this work is the algorithm that Sadilek developed to distinguish between tweets that suggest a person tweeting is sick and those that don't. This algorithm is based on machine-learning, or as Sadilek described it, "it's like teaching a baby a new language," only in this case it's a computational algorithm that is being taught.

In their new system, nEmesis, they brought in an extra layer of complexity to improve the algorithm; they used crowdsourcing. For any one person, it would be exhausting and time-consuming to look through thousands of tweets to categorize them. The end results might not even be very accurate if their judgment is not quite right.

Instead the researchers turned to Amazon's Mechanical Turk system to reach out to a crowd of readily available workers. These were paid small amounts of money to categorize some tweets that could then be used to train the algorithm. They ensured the pool of tweets they were going use was of high accuracy by having more than one worker look at each tweet and incentivizing the right answer by paying the workers when their answer agreed with that of the majority and deducting money when it didn't. The algorithm was then able to learn from the training samples how to spot tweets that show people that are likely to have foodborne illnesses.

Of course, the system only considers people who tweet, who might not even be a representative sample of the whole population or of the population visiting a restaurant. But the Twitter data can be used together with knowledge gained from other sources to detect foodborne illness in a timely manner. It provides an extra layer -- a passive level of monitoring -- which is cost-effective. And the information that nEmesis offers can benefit both Twitter and non-Twitter users.

Harbinger sues Deere and GPS companies for $1.9 billion in damages

As Reported by Reuters: Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital on Friday sued agricultural equipment maker Deere & Co and Global Positioning System companies and groups for damages of $1.9 billion as it looks to recoup its investment in bankrupt wireless company LightSquared.

The lawsuit's defendants, who include GPS companies Garmin International and Trimble Navigation Ltd, had opposed LightSquared's plans to build a wireless network because of concerns it would interfere with GPS systems, which are used in everything from farming to airline navigation.

Other defendants include industry groups the U.S. GPS Industry Council and the Coalition to Save Our GPS.

Harbinger, which has spent billions of dollars on LightSquared, said in a complaint filed on Friday that it never would have made the investments if the GPS industry had disclosed potential interference problems between the LightSquared spectrum and GPS equipment between 2002 and 2009.

The hedge fund accused the defendants of fraud and negligent misrepresentation among other allegations, saying the defendants "knew years ago" all the material facts on which they based their opposition to the LightSquared network.

The diagram shows the RF spectrum overlap between the proposed LightSquared
signals, and the GPS/GLONASS signalling, which would have degraded
the GNSS signals making it potentially more difficult to extract critical
navigation information.

Trimble general counsel Jim Kirkland said the company would defend itself against the lawsuit he said was without merit. He disputed a Harbinger's assertion that the interference resulted from a problem with the design of GPS devices.

"This interference resulted from the characteristics of LightSquared's new plan for use of satellite spectrum, not the design of GPS devices. The responsibility for Harbinger's losses rests squarely with Harbinger," Kirkland said in an email.

Deere declined to comment on the case. Garmin was not immediately available for comment.

Falcone, once one of the hedge fund industry's most powerful figures, risked the future of Harbinger on a 96 percent ownership of LightSquared, in a bet that it would be able to become a new competitor to the U.S. wireless market.

But LightSquared had to file for bankruptcy protection in May 2012 after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission revoked permission to build out a new high-speed wireless network after tests showed that its network would interfere with GPS systems.

Falcone has also had legal problems himself. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year charged Falcone with market manipulation and other violations. In July the SEC voted to reject a deal its enforcement division had struck with Falcone without explaining its decision.

Harbinger filed the lawsuit on Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Garmin International is a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd.

Integrated Solar-powered Smartphones are Closer to Becoming Reality

An example of  how a Wysip crystal display
would operate on an iPhone.  1 hour of Sun exposure
could provide 30 minutes of wireless air time, while
adding only about $1 of cost to the overall design.

As reported by Zdnet: TCL Communication, a Chinese mobile phone manufacturer, is developing smartphones that recharge themselves using solar power. A phone is rather small for a solar panel, but it's using transparent WYSIPS Crystal technology that is bonded to the smartphone screen.

Wysips Crystal -- which stands for What You See Is Photovoltaic Surface -- has been developed by Sunpartner, which is based in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France.  Sunpartner says: "The goal of this partnership is to develop smartphone prototypes powered by solar and artificial light. This project will enable TCL Communication to evaluate the technology in both technical and marketing terms."

TCL also has a French connection, in that it supplies Alcatel with its OneTouch mobile phone. It markets phones in more than 120 countries.

WYSIPS are implemented using lenticular printing, an optical
technology which shows different images depending on the
observers position and is used often to create 3D effects
and animations.

The companies expect that putting an ultra-thin layer of WYSIPS Crystal under the screen will enable a smartphone to generate enough power to maintain a charge. It believes an hour of sunlight will likely provide enough power for 30 minutes of conversation.

Sunpartner is also working with another two large phone companies. It says it "plans to finalize two agreements in the coming months and sign the first licenses during the first half of 2014."

Last month, Sunpartner completed a second round of funding, bringing its total to €9 million ($12 million) over the past three years, and it plans to raise another €6 million ($8 million) to put Wysips Crystal into production in Rousset. (See Recharge : SunPartner, fabricant d’un film solaire pour écrans, signe un accord avec TCL at ZDNet.fr).

Sunpartner says Wysips Crystal could also be used in tablets and e-book readers, watches, electronic tags etc, and in intelligent buildings (windows, facades etc).

Sunpartner showed its first prototypes at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2013.

Location, Location, Location: GPS for Potholes, Poker, and Women's Safety

An innovative GPS application called SpeedBump
uses smartphones traveling in vehicles to find
potholes, so they can be assessed and repaired.

Continued from our prior article: Location information, most of it based on GPS, is being used to solve problems around the globe.

In Boston, an app called Speed Bump records the jolts from potholes as users drive around the streets. The software notes the location of potential potholes by using the phone’s GPS capability and accelerometer to assess the smoothness of the ride. The data is then sent to the city to help road crews find and fix the road divots.

Bwin uses IP location in order to make sure that players
are in compliance with local regulations regarding online
gaming.

Bwin, one of the word’s largest online gambling firms, is using location technology for regulatory compliance in the United States. The firm has to be sure its customers are only accessing its service from one of the handful of states that now allow online gambling.

Fight Back, is a women's safety app that can contact the
local authorities, as well as friends on social media such
as Facebook, to report an impending or ongoing attack.

In India, where a spate of horrendous gang rapes has triggered international headlines, a free app called Fight Back enables women in trouble to call for police assistance with the push of a button. The phone app gives officers the caller’s location and sends out a call for help via email and Facebook to loved ones. The application is one of thousands developed over the last four or five years by Tech Mahindra, an India firm that also does applications testing and develops enterprise applications.

Fight Back, which is India’s first mobile safety app for women, has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, said Karthik Natarajan, the firm’s senior vice president and global head of integrated engineering solutions. It has been used, he estimated, some 10,000 to 12,000 times.

Detecting and Locating GPS Jammers: Jamming-Offenders can Net a $32K Fine if Caught

The CTL3500 provided by Chronos, can pinpoint the
location of GPS jammers.

One of the most infamous GPS jamming events in the history of GPS is arguably the San Diego Airport disruption. A single event brought the flight control room in the San Diego airport to its feet, wondering and panicking as to what was really going on. ATM machines refused customers , the harbor traffic management system was going haywire. All this because of a GPS jamming event. A clear indication that the GPS system does not just run the navigation system for vehicles; it does a lot more than that.

GPS is in a sense, is a silent force that powers the modern communication world. Mobile network service providers use GPS time signals to coordinate how your phone talks to the cell phone towers.

Electricity grids turn to GPS for synchronization when they are connected together. Banks and stock exchanges use the GPS/GNSS for time-stamping transactions without which electronic commerce would be rendered difficult if not nearly impossible.

A typical Chinese made GPS jammer.  They are illegal to
purchase or use inside the USA.  They are illegal to use
inside the UK, but not illegal to purchase.

The GPS jamming source was eventually identified after 3 days of investigation; a Navy exercise to test procedures when communication was down.

Technology R&D groups in the past have also jammed GPS signals unintentionally. Unfortunately, the jamming expertise was not just localized to the Navy or the Military. There was another infamous event where a truck driver was using a GPS jammer near an airport to avoid being tracked.  The driver has recently been identified and fined a harsh penalty; the maximum allowed by law.

GPS jamming devices are available for under $30 online but it’s illegal to use/buy such a device only in a few countries. Many across the world have not yet realized the danger and/or disruptions that these devices can cause to other businesses.

So is there anything that can be done to find these jammers?  Several systems have been proposed to identify or localize GPS jamming including ad-hoc networks - however, pinpointing jammers in crowded vehicle environments has been difficult; since detectors could only generally provide information about where a jammer might be located.

Now, Chronos is providing a  £1,600 ($2,145 USD) handheld GPS Jammer Detector and Locator System that can identify a jammer-using vehicle in a multistory car park – and can pinpoint portable devices in drivers’ pockets when they have left their cars. The system currently is limited to only L1 signal bands.

The FCC is implementing a $32K penalty for use of a GPS jammer by an individual; a relatively tidy sum if the jamming offender is caught - and with these new tools that is more likely to happen than ever before.

Location, Location, Location: Laws Lagging Location Technology

In 2012 the Supreme Court unanimously agreed to bar
Police from installing GPS to track subjects.  However, a
Federal appeals court has ruled that obtaining location
information from wireless carriers does not require a
warrant - and some agencies are using geo-located photo
ID's of license plates to track vehicle locations.  Email IP
addresses can also provide indirect location information.

Continued from our prior article: Lawmakers in Washington DC have picked up on the issue of location privacy though little has been done since several measures were introduced for the new congressional session.

The GPS Act (HR 1312 and S. 639) and the Online Communications and Geolocation Protection Act (HR 983) would prohibit intercepting and disclosing location information without prior consent. Both of these bills are still in committee, and no action has been taken on them since March 2013.

The Location Privacy Protection Act, which was introduced in 2011 by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, would prohibit companies from collecting, obtaining or disclosing most location data without express permission. According to his staff, the senator is planning to reintroduce the bill in the coming months.

The US Senate has several proposed bills to limit the use of
location tracking data.

State lawmakers are not waiting — although they are primarily moving to mandate law enforcement officials get a warrant before accessing location data. Massachusetts is considering such a law and Maine has already passed one. Texas has passed a law requiring a warrant for emails, and a similar bill passed the California Senate. The metadata in the header of an email can include an IP address, which often indicates location.

The laws on location data are unclear, said Natasha Léger, chief executive officer of the Location Forum, and handling things poorly can put a firm’s reputation at risk. To keep the confidence of their customers, companies should adopt policies that protect their privacy even if they may go beyond current legal requirements, she said.

Many public safety agencies, including Police use
private GPS tracking systems to keep track of their
fleets of vehicles - including patrol cars, fire,
ambulance, and State patrol vehicles.

“I think for the future of location what is important is demonstrating respect for location data and privacy beyond what the current law asks for,” said Leger, “because the technology is moving much faster than the current legal and policy regime.”

Companies that step up to the challenge will not only avoid bad publicity but will be able to make a stronger case to the customers whose location data they must have to succeed.

“We at the Forum look at privacy from the perspective of it being utilized as a competitive advantage,” said Leger. “As people become more and more concerned about how their information is being collected used and shared . . . people are really looking for companies that are stepping up and stewarding that information responsibly.”

Location, Location, Location: GPS Business-Oriented Apps Growing

Creative location-aware business applications are on the rise.

Continued from our prior article: In the retail sector consumer tracking is being used to identify the best store sites and offer promotions to customers. One of the most widely touted ideas is to send coupons to the mobile phones of potential customers already in the store’s immediate area. Those customers might be identified by the fact that they just used a review site to search for a restaurant or have an app on their phone that identifies them as being a frequent buyer.

One business in Guatemala has taken targeted discounts to a new level. Called Meat Pack, the store sells cutting-edge athletic shoes – the kind of limited edition footwear that collectors, or sneakerheads, scramble to buy. The store’s fans follow it via social networking and many have downloaded Meat Pack’s app. The store developed Hijack, an app enhancement that is triggered when one of the store’s customers enters a competing shop.

When a Meat Pack customer steps into the official store of one the brands sold by Meat Pack, Nike for example, the Hijack application offers them a 99 percent discount. That discount diminishes one percentage point per second until the customer enters Meat Pack, which is located in the same mall. One buyer got there so fast he got 89 percent off. Some 600 customers have used the Meat Pack discount — sales that were made public on Facebook, generating even more buzz.

Hijack - a creative geo-fencing ad application that detects
when a customer is in a competitors store - and offers
a reducing discount that starts at 99% off, with a
reduction by 1% for every minute it takes them to get
to the Meat-Pack store.

Not all retailers have been as successful. Nordstrom began experimenting with location tracking last year but, once it began notifying shoppers, they complained and the retailer had to drop the project. The program used sensors installed by a firm called Euclid that captured the Wi-Fi signals coming off customer cell phones.

Euclid was able to monitor when someone bypassed the store, when they came in, where they went, and how long they stayed. Such data can help stores assess why they are winning/losing customers, evaluate promotions or determine whether a particular display can hold buyers’ attention.

According to Euclid’s website they also offer information on consumer loyalty, which can be inferred from tracking the unique identifier number broadcast by every cell phone. Over time it can indicate who is a regular shopper — although the firm says the data is anonymized before it is delivered.

But data-hungry firms can do more than just follow customers around. Nomi, of New York, can link a customer’s visit and behavior with their Web browsing and purchase history. The person must have provided some personal information to create the link, according to a story in the New York Times. They might have downloaded the retailer’s app or used the in-store Wi-Fi and given an e-mail address. Once the link is made the store will have access to their profile.

Some brick and mortar businesses see tracking apps as a way to level the playing field. It gives them some of the intimate insight into their customers that online-only stores like Amazon have been getting for years get by analyzing purchases.

But location information has uses far beyond getting to know who one’s best customers are.

“(Companies) have done studies which demonstrate that they can predict the behavior of people based on their mobile patterns,” said Natasha Léger, chief executive officer of the Location Forum, which just recently released voluntary guidelines for the protection of location data.

The guidelines point out that location data can be derived from more than cell phones or IP addresses. Geo-references can be found on Facebook and in the metadata of digital photos, email, and documents. Companies are already gathering data from 100 or more sources and integrating it to gain new insights, Leger said. “Data is being correlated at a scale that most people don’t understand.”