Over at CNN, there’s a piece about the use of patterns found in populations that carry cell phones. I make the point in the article that this data is like watching river flows.

Novel and original applications for consumer technology are not new. For example the packs of hacked robotic dogs that were programmed to “sniff” out harmful levels of chemical emissions from landfill sites.

So why is pattern sensing via mobiles – which initially requires heavy modification of cellphones – emerging now?

In only a few short years the cell phone has morphed from a gadget used to make phone calls into the only computer that you take everywhere, that connects you to everything and never gets switched off. As businesses begin to understand the implications of this, the incidence of unexpected uses will burgeon.

Accompanying this corporate awakening is another trend – the the rise of “techno-tinkerers” – people who are happy to ignore the warranty-voiding stickers that warn against open heart surgery on their newest gadget.

Resources such as YouTube detail exactly how to open your phone, while the best hacks are immortalised in Make magazine. In doing so gadgets are being transformed in ways that the original creators could never have imagined.

It’s almost like years of pent up DIY frustration have been unleashed on Asia’s best technology exports as increasing numbers of people are no longer intimidated by taking a soldering iron to the insides of their precious purchases.

Watch this space.

Update: the Sydney Morning Herald Innovator blog also picked up on this article in CNN.