Freaky. Awesome. But freaky.
This app will freak you out, but it's the future of, well, a lot


Everyone I've shown this app to today (it came out last week) says "that's freaky."

What does it do? It captures a ton of data on your phone as you move through the world. Right now it keeps a list of places. But here I sit down with founder Sam Liang for a discussion about just what data it captures, how that data could be used, and how he's going to get people to cross the freaky line.

This is the future folks and, it, is, indeed, freaky. Learn more at https://www.placemeapp.com/placeme/ It's a free Android or iPhone app.

Last night I spent a few hours with Liang talking about this kind of persistent ambient sensing app.

It studies all the sensors in your phone. Temperature. Compass. Gyroscope. Wifi and bluetooth antennas. Accelerometer. It collects all that data and uploads it to his servers.

This app knows EVERYTHING about where you are, even more than you do. It is TOTALLY FREAKY and TOTALLY is the future.

I'm already addicted to it, and Highlight, which uses some of the same data to show me people near me.

I'm not the only one. +Tim O'Reilly is using it. So are thousands of other people.

Let's see what it learns pretty quickly.

1. Where you live.
2. Where you work.
3. Your route to work (it can tell you're driving).
4. What church you go to, or if you go at all.
5. What strip club you go to and just how excited you are (seriously!)
6. What gas station you stop at. It also knows how many miles you have to drive before you have to get more gas.
7. Whether you are walking or running or just standing still.
8. Whether you just got in a car wreck.
9. What your favorite restaurants are and what kind of food you both like and hate.
10. What kinds of things are you likely to have bought inside stores, or at least the departments you visited.

Everyone should watch this video to see what the future will look like once you cross the freaky line (I already have and I predict you will too -- these kinds of apps will save you money and make your life better. We talk a bit about the use cases in this video.

Are you freaked out yet? You should be. But let me know if you are joining me in using apps like this and Highlight, which are both over the freaky line.

By the way, I shot this video late at night in front of the http://blackbox.vc/ Blackbox VC Mansion, where I met Sam at a party. More on that soon, it's one of the coolest startup incubators I've ever visited. This is why I love Silicon Valley so much. Where else can you meet guys like Sam who freak you out and show you a mind-blowing future?
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