YOU鈥橰E heading for your favourite cafe when your phone buzzes. Try the one round the corner, it suggests: you might run into a regular who shares your passion for collecting stamps.
Implausible? Perhaps not. The foundations of such a network are already here, in the form of a system that can predict where you鈥檒l go, and who you鈥檒l meet there (see 鈥溾�楶re-social network鈥� finds you friends in your hang-outs鈥�). But the questions it raises are more social than technical.
To help people with their social lives, the system would have to track them, not just their phones, match their identities to their social profiles and spot situations where their path might cross that of an interesting stranger.
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Privacy concerns apart, would we even want computers to stage-manage our lives in this way? The popularity of satnavs, internet dating and now Apple鈥檚 iPhone 鈥渧oice assistant鈥�, Siri, suggests that we might.
Of course, we鈥檇 still have to take the initiative. Your phone may direct you to a 鈥渃hance鈥� encounter with someone of social, professional or even romantic interest. But would you be ready to make the first move? Perhaps we need an app for that, too.
