Mobile that knows your tech past

WASHINGTON: For those who relish looking back on the small, often inconsequential, details of their lives, a Japanese company has come up with a “Big Brother” mobile network that makes up where human memory fails. Japan’s number two telecom operator KDDI Corp has developed a server that keeps a record of the smallest events in a person’s “electronic life” and lets others sift through them.

“Lifelog Pod” jots down every small activity an individual performs through a cellphone or computer — including taking photographs, reading barcodes, searching for a restaurant, listening to music, organising travel or managing money. While some may loathe the thought of an omniscient network, the company said it could prove a way to make friends.
Users can learn whom else their friends chat with or delve through their companions’ data — minus areas protected by passwords to gauge their interests. “This Lifelog server is a big opportunity to widen your social network ,” a KDDI spokesman said. “Your information is connected to that of your friend, and that of his friend, and so on and so forth.”
In a country of cell phone aficionados where online communities mushroom daily, cellphone users can also put their blogs onto the common server. Only people who have a common connection—such as a mutual friend—will be able to access each other’s data, with complete strangers unable to enter the system.

“This isn’t a violation of privacy rights,” the KDDI official said. “It is simply that everyone is connected, and those who are connected have to expect to be open to many people.” However, KDDI Corp does not plan yet to commercialise the “Lifelog” server. “This is just to let people know that we are able to develop this kind of technology,” the spokesman said.