So far, many companies have tried to dispel such fears by noting that the data they gather, store and analyze remains "anonymous." But that, as it turns out, is not entirely accurate, in that it sells the power of data analysis radically short. Take the analysis of anonymous movement profiles, for example. According to a current study by the online journal Scientific Reports, our mobility patterns are so different that that they can be used to "uniquely identify 95 percent of the individuals." The more data is in circulation and available for analysis, the more likely it is that anonymity becomes "algorithmically impossible," says Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan.
In his blog, Narayanan writes that only 33 bits of information are sufficient to identify a person.
Doris Reeves-Lipscomb on 10 Apr 14""We do our best work when we're physically connected," says Roy Hirshland, CEO of T3 Advisors, a commercial real estate advisor. Dialing in on Skype will work in a pinch, but it's not a substitute, he says. "When you're in the same room, you can see facial expressions, you can feel energy in a room." The idea is based on Media Richness Theory, which posits that some tasks require face-to-face interaction. Skype doesn't fit the bill. "Skype is a great, free way to communicate with sound and picture, but with glitchy connections, awkward camera angles, the limitations of webcams and cheap microphones, etc.," says Dr. Matthew Lombard, a professor at Temple University and president of the International Society for Presence Research. "It's far from the same experience as talking to someone in person. Face-Time and other tablet and phone methods have the advantage of mobility, but they suffer in terms of the vividness of the experience." "Narrow-bandwidth tech like text-based chat rooms and messaging, and email, are great for specific, relatively straight-forward, 'dry' cognitive tasks but not so good for things that involve ambiguity and emotion," Lombard says. "So there are an awful lot of tasks people need to complete in business (and certainly in life generally) that don't lend themselves well to these technologies.""
