How predictable are people? We are using credit card transaction data to look at how patterns of human behavior change over time and space, and with which macroeconomic features these changes correlate. How does spending/merchant composition evolve as a region gets bigger/richer/more economically diverse? Do network features help to predict economic ones?

Minecraft is a video game focused on creativity and building. Players build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world–everything from a hut, to a train station, to a fully functional computer. Why can't we take those virtual creations, and bring them into the real world? Minecraft.Print() is our attempt to do so by creating a bridge between Minecraft and the real world, via 3D printers. A Minecraft player defines a 3D space to be printed, after which the software extracts the object, structure, or other creation from the virtual space and creates 3D-printable version. Minecraft.Print() takes advantage of the basic CAD functions of the game, thus allowing 14,000,000 (and counting) players to experience 3D modeling and printing–an area previously limited to those with more specific technical backgrounds.

In a world where sensors, data storage, and processing power are too cheap to meter, how do you ensure that users can realize the full value of their data while protecting their privacy? Relying on the concept of sufficient statistics, as well as web-technologies such as xml and json, our system provides users with intuitive ways of managing their personal data while allowing companies to offer innovative data-enabled services and products. A fully working prototype was presented at the World Economic Forum 2011 in Davos.

Data mining of email has provided important insights into how organizations function and what management practices lead to greater productivity. But important communications are almost always face-to-face, so we are missing the greater part of the picture. Today, however, people carry cell phones and wear RFID badges. These body-worn sensor networks mean that we can potentially know who talks to whom, and even how they talk to each other. Sensible Organizations investigates how these new technologies for sensing human interaction can be used to reinvent organizations and management.

We are using non-invasive measurement of social signals found in voice, body movement, and location to quantify symptoms in neurological disorders such as Parkinson's Disease.