This app shares 20 days of your life with a complete stranger and vice versa
These days, everyone is obsessed with their privacy – from the most powerful political leaders to any Tom, Dick, and Harry. Of course, it's important to protect your personal data from prying eyes or ears, but what if you could anonymously reveal only a limited amount of personal information to another human being? Well, it might be rather creepy at first, but a group of developers with MIT's Media Lab Playful Systems and the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values have undertook a curious experiment – they have created an iOS app that... shares your everyday experiences with a complete stranger for 20 days. No names, no communication, just a vague notion of your daily life – enter 20 Day Stranger.
Don't worry, this app won't pinpoint your exact location on a global map, nor will it reveal any kind of personal information. 20 Day Stranger uses the APIs of Foursquare, Google Maps, and Instagram to tailor and replicate every day of yours. For example, by using Foursquare's API, the app will detect that you are in a restaurant, for example, and it would attach a relevant picture and share this piece of info with your anonymous peer. Interestingly, this process goes both ways, so if your partner in 20 Day Stranger does something, you would be able to see it, too.
We would wager that most people won't find the idea of sharing everything they do on a daily basis with a stranger quite fascinating, but those curious to experience another person's life in a rather intimate and personal way might find 20 Day Stranger truly intriguing. The app is being beta tested at the moment, so if it sounds like your cup of tea, you can follow the source link and apply for participation in this curious project.
source: 20 Day Stranger via Gizmodo
For 20 days, you and a stranger will experience the world in your own way, together.
Don't worry, this app won't pinpoint your exact location on a global map, nor will it reveal any kind of personal information. 20 Day Stranger uses the APIs of Foursquare, Google Maps, and Instagram to tailor and replicate every day of yours. For example, by using Foursquare's API, the app will detect that you are in a restaurant, for example, and it would attach a relevant picture and share this piece of info with your anonymous peer. Interestingly, this process goes both ways, so if your partner in 20 Day Stranger does something, you would be able to see it, too.
“It's a mobile experience that exchanges one person's experience of the world with another's, while preserving anonymity on both sides... You'll never know who it is or exactly where they are, but we hope it will reveal enough about someone to build your imagination of their life... and more broadly, the imagination of strangers everywhere,” the description of the project states.
We would wager that most people won't find the idea of sharing everything they do on a daily basis with a stranger quite fascinating, but those curious to experience another person's life in a rather intimate and personal way might find 20 Day Stranger truly intriguing. The app is being beta tested at the moment, so if it sounds like your cup of tea, you can follow the source link and apply for participation in this curious project.
How do you feel about the idea behind 20 Day Stranger? Be sure to drop a line below and share your thoughts with us!
source: 20 Day Stranger via Gizmodo
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