Can mobile technology stop swine flu?

Well, not exactly. Or at least not yet. But in the not-too-distant future, mobile tech could help track the spread of infectious disease, making it easier to combat. Here’s an example of how that is starting to happen.

One of the amazing things about the Internet is the way a bunch of seemingly random data points can be transformed into a otherwise-invisible insight. Google has been sharing information about hot search topics for years, and even offers a specialized trend-watcher to help track flu outbreaks.

But when you throw mobile technology into the mix, the resulting real-time snapshot of social patterns gets even more powerful. Have you ever gotten a tweet from a mobile Twitterer letting you know that their flight has just landed? This short video shows the overall travel patterns throughout the entire Twittersphere simply by mapping all tweets in a 36-hour time period that contain the phrase “just landed in….” As mobile participation in social networks becomes more common, this kind of map can potentially help epidemiologists track and quickly contain outbreaks of contagious diseases.

(And for a different kind of visualization of the patterns of everyday life, catch the Palm Pre featured on Sprint’s Now Network.)

Jon Zilber

Comments

[J]

Fantastically innovative, but they might consider going with a globe over a flat model. I'm suspect some of those international flights leaving California really go West across the Pacific. :)

[palmprefan]

Wow. That's pretty impressive and a bit scary at the same time. Knowing that this data is available out there makes me think twice about turning on my phone.

Hopefully most of those dots will be Palm Pre's in the future ;)

[Jim Riscigno]

can anyone tell me if the Pre has a screen key pad you can pull up for entering data? Is your only choice the small buttons on the key pad?
Jim

[Flu Mask]

Interesting concept.