I'm fascinated by pedometers and measuring pebbles and their use and misuse.
Personally, I find a lot of what they tell me revealing, I learn new things about myself and I change bits of my behaviour through noticing these things. Equally, it's clear they're a sousveillance species and the street will find its uses for them. Especially if there are incentives for them to produce false data.
The first time I saw the evidence of these incentives – when you weren't just fooling yourself – was when Nintendo released the pokewalker and you would get more pokestuff in return for recording steps. An obviously well-intentioned idea from Nintendo but immediately, of course, pokeplayers found ingenious ways to artificially create steps.
And now, steps on your Fitbit or similar, can equal actual money, off your health insurance or in a personal injury case.
And, since everything these days is a battle between algos and quants then quantified cheating is going to have to get more sophisticated. Before long insurance company analysts will be able to spot the telltale traces of sensors strapped to turntables, pets or robots. The machine cheats will have to get more sophisticated.
Hence this prototype from Berners Street Fitness. Right now, it walks when an IFTTT trigger from twitter tells it there's a lot of people walking, but soon, we hope, it'll be able to succesfully and regularly pass for a real walking human. It'll pass a Touring Test.
Contrast this approach with the one that saved Apple. Fewer, better, more understandable products.