What a Fake Toilet Company Tells Us About Our Fading Privacy

I wasn't actually surprised to learn that public officials in Toronto had agreed to install "smart toilets" in the city's convention center so they could analyze public, um, data. As a privacy researcher, the idea fascinated me.

Only problem: It wasn’t true.

But a fake toilet company’s publicity stunt has me thinking, which is what Quantified Toilets intended. Smart toilets are just the kind of product you expect to encounter at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing, or CHI, an annual event where researchers discuss the latest science of how people interact with technology. This is my favorite conference to attend. There are always new and cool projects that make me think. Read more...