Ian Smith · Intel Research Seattle
Social Mobile Applications, Location Privacy, and the capital of Nevada

In this talk, I'll discuss a research trajectory that we have been pursuing at Intel Research Seattle. This trajectory is "social, mobile applications" or, perhaps more colloquially, "applications that don't support a specific work task and can be used just about anywhere." I'll talk through what this area of research is, the context of the work at Intel Research Seattle into large-scale location systems, and some experiments we have done, are doing, and are planning to do. A significant portion of the talk will be dedicated to the privacy issues that come up (or don't come up) as one deploys location-aware applications to mobile platforms people use in their daily lives.

Ian Smith is a senior researcher at the Intel Research Seattle lab in Seattle, Washington. His work focuses on having a big bowl of ubicomp technology, social science, and some software engineering. Stir vigorously and don't forget to drizzle on some privacy. He previously stirred the pot at the Palo Alto Research Center in Palo Alto, California. He was granted a Ph.D. and a chef's hat from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1998.