May 5, 2009
Cell phones to sense our environment and its pollutants
Our cell phones have become portable guides to the world around us and are changing the way we move through it — towards the nearest ATM, or available taxi, or away from a restaurant that garnered bad reviews. But what if cell phones could measure the temperature and humidity or pick up unseen environmental contaminants like air pollution, UV levels, and pollen count in our immediate surroundings? Seed Magazine reports via Smart Mobs.
How would it change your ideas about moving around in the world, if you could suddenly sense things you couldn’t see?” asks Eric Paulos, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Paulos wants to put tiny environmental sensors in cell phones and turn phone users into roving citizen scientists who continuously sample and respond to their personal environment.
This type of local and real-time environmental data would not only facilitate science and satisfy individual curiosity, it will empower people to uncover, visualize, and collectively share information about their own neighborhoods and cities. It could ultimately encourage active participation in protecting and improving those spaces.
Read full article.
Related:
-- Cyclists' cellphones help monitor air pollution (2008)
-- Cell phone Air Pollution Monitor (2007)
-- Aero Phone measures air pollution (2004)
-- Saving the World With Cell Phones (2005)
-- Cell phones could warn of gas leaks (2003)
-- Phones that detect terrorist attacks (2003)
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