When media buyers want to know how many people saw their ad during Grey's Anatomy, they turn to Nielsen. When the ad is on radio stations like Z100, they turn to Arbitron. When the ad is on CNN.com, perhaps they'll ask comScore. None of these audience measurement services is perfect, and applying accurate quantifiable sums to ratings scores is really a game of "the best worst solution." A new measurement company, then, is trying to combine all of these mediums of media consumption — TV, Internet, radio, movie theatres, DVD … outdoor? — into one happy Excel spreadsheet, which can tell clients how many people caught their marketing message now matter how it was sent out. Pushing a new energy drink on the masses via radio, TV, and airplane banner? They can track it! (Sort of.)

The firm is called Integrated Media Measurement, and it hopes to accomplish all this by using cell phones as data collectors. By having panelists' mobiles listen to audio cues, IMM then uploads the soundbite to its database and matches it against known media, so when somebody's phone hears an TV ad for Beverly Hills Chihuahua, they know Disney's obnoxious new flick about sassy dogs got a hit. Except this ratings strategy, like all others, is absolutely flawed.

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For all those find who find following their exes friends too time consuming, there’s good news. More than half of American phones can do the work for you.

GPS embedded technology makes it possible to know the exact location of contacts who also use have GPS embedded phones. The services are most popular with college kids, but Helio offers a program that lets small-business owners track the whereabouts of their employees.

Four years ago, no one would have predicted that posting private pictures online would be so widely enjoyed. Undoubtedly, eventually this technology will be both ubiquitous and well-liked. So while we can still say it, we will: this is creepy.

It says a lot about New York that our moment of Zen is on public transit. But now the smell of urine in the subway stations will be accompanied by mindless cellphone chatter.

The MTA signed a deal with Transit Wireless to wire the 277 subway station. At an additional cost, riders will be able to talk underground while waiting for the train, but there will be no service in the tunnels.

The MTA screws up a lot—we’ll just say the L train and leave it at that—but we have to give them props for showing some restraint on this deal. If we get didn’t thirty minutes a day without overhearing someone complain about their relationship or the stock market, we’d really go crazy.