The iPhone is the precursor of the Tricorder of Star Trek fame, it just doesn't know it yet. But coupled with the Internet, it already goes much further than Gene Roddenberry ever imagined. It's fun to use the iPhone as an appliance that brings music, video and the Internet to the user; it's even more interesting when it becomes an ENVIRONMENTAL SENSOR that sends information to servers that provide feedback to the user over the web. Participatory Sensing allows individuals access to detailed facts sensed by all users in their community. Source: sensorplanet.org.pdf
I hope the next iPhone includes even more environmental sensors that can be continuously uploaded. For example: air temperature, humidity, air pressure, air quality, visible photographs, infrared photographs, ultraviolet photographs, bar code reader, sound, ultrasound, infra sound, heart monitor, running speed, even CPU temperature. Oh, here is a more complete list of sensors.
You might want a harness to keep it in position on your body; pointing forward for life logging. I like the one that straps to your bicep.
It turns out life logging is moderately interesting (possibly narcissistic) but the collected data of life logs suitably repackaged becomes a source of information for social change we can't imagine today.
Examples extracting data by sensing :
- Sensing searches: Google Trends provides insights into broad search patterns such as this question: When is daylight savings fall 2009, Nov 1, 2009,
Google Trends on h1n1 searches - Sensing traffic, air polution: PEIR
The iPhone is a rich portable computer with onboard sensors. Specifically, it is a location-aware (GPS), motion-aware (accelerometer), directionally-aware (digital compass) visually aware (camera being used to scan QA codes or serve as visual input), sonically aware (microphone and speakers), always-connected (wireless or 3Gs) handheld computer.peer records GPS and Accelerometer from iPhone.Participatory Sensing - An Interview with Deborah Estrin - O'Reilly Radar
