SO MUCH FOR SMARTPHONE PRIVACY: Researchers are harvesting a wealth of intimate detail from our cellphone data, uncovering the hidden patterns of our social lives, travels, risk of disease—even our political views. “Back at MIT, scientists who tracked student cellphones during the latest presidential election were able to deduce that two people were talking about politics, even though the researchers didn’t know the content of the conversation. By analyzing changes in movement and communication patterns, researchers could also detect flu symptoms before the students themselves realized they were getting sick.”

Plus this: “The patterns are allowing us to learn how to better manipulate trends, opinions and mass psychology.” I have some related thoughts here.