Comment by eveningcoffee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eveningcoffee | Hacker News Reader

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Another thing people may not realize is how cloud connected sensors could be used.

Let say you want to know if people are having less sex (well, it may come out from the search or browsing history but maybe not) and you want to use this information to target advertisements of services or products.

So how would you do that using cloud connected sensors?

Easiest method is to use CO2 sensor in the bedroom (assuming that this is the place where usually people do have sex). Rate of CO2 production is correlated with the rate of energy usage and spike in CO2 levels around certain time may mark people having higher bodily activities (and when located in the bedroom it usually means sex). Change in the frequency of these spikes may mean the change in the frequency of having sex. As ads do not have to be that precise, this is probably enough data.

Another method is to use a temperature sensor. As higher bodily activity would consume more energy, it should then rise the room temperature that could be detected with sensitive enough temperature sensor. This method is more evolved as the spikes in the temperature could be also caused by the rise in outside temperature or the temperature difference might be very small when windows are open, or may be caused by fall of temperature outside that heating system tries to over compensate.

But it is likely that there exists distinguishable change profile and it is likely possible to mitigate outside effects with additional sensors.

Hmm yeah your example makes me think of fast-food as an analogy.

That is to say, there may be applications of sensing that benefit corporations financially, but don't help their users... Imagine an automaton that provokes couples into divorce though advertising, using sensed data (Instead of "You've got mail!" "you're having less sex!") as evidence.

Hmmm. Considering how lucrative the divorce could be, I would not be surprised by targeted campaign similar to the whale targeting in freemium gaming.

This could be is also an answer to the question "what do I have to hide?". Well, everything as you do not want to be singled out.

I wonder how much a candle or a fireplace could skew your test.

Interesting question. I will speculate without actual data for entertainment purposes.

I would assume that a candle would produce more or less constant output in heat and CO2 and you likely will light it before having sex and not in the middle of it.

I would also assume that two exercising humans will produce more output than a candle.

So it would produce some bump in the baseline but you still would have a measurable spike in it.

You could also distinguish the candle from the light bulb when you have CO2 reading.

Of course it would be also better if you could execute controlled tests i.e. you could control the heating and possibly the ventilation. As the temperature sensor in the room is usually in the form of thermostat then the first one would be viable.

A fireplace would deplete oxygen from the room but (unless one without exhaust) will not increase the room CO2 concentration. But it will likely introduce an additional airflow. So this would be more complicated case.

But you likely could trick the users in the configuration phase to give you additional information to make strange cases more explainable. I.e. you could ask such harmless question like do you have a fireplace.

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