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Barometers In iPhones Mean More Crowdsourcing In Weather Forecasts
cryptoz (878581) writes Apple is now adding barometers to its mobile devices: both new iPhones have valuable atmospheric pressure sensors being used for HealthKit (step counting). Since many Android devices have been carrying barometers for years, scientists like Cliff Mass have been using the sensor data to improve weather forecasts. Open source data collection projects like PressureNet on Android automatically collect and send the atmospheric sensor data to researchers.
I read the lead in three times, each time reading HeaLthKit as HeathKit. I must be officailly an old fart...
Apples reality distortion field. Remember, its not useful until apple does it, and then once apple does it, it becomes innovation.
"Innovation" mostly has to do with getting people to buy or use something -- actually being the first person to invent or market the thing doesn't really carry any intrinsic benefit, follow-through and execution always trump good ideas. Ideas are cheap.
--- Signed, Ignaz Semmelweiss, Elija Gray, the Lumiere Brothers, Preston Tucker, Douglas Engelbart, Xerox PARC, inter alia
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
If you get the chance to monitor the barometer at high frequency there are a couple neat atmospheric phenomena which you can observe.
The shockwaves which preceed an oncoming strong front or thunderstorm are especially cool to watch.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
No, it and of itself won't be meaningful. That's the crowdsource bit.
OK, for all of you that stare at the weatherperson and wonder what the funny lines are for: The column of air just above your head and extending to the top of the atmosphere has a mass that depends on a number of details. This fluctuates from minute to minute and, in fact, occurs in waves (those funny lines). Detailed information about the barometric pressure at any given location and time can be sent to a central station where that data is collected and displayed. The more (accurate) sensors that you have, the better detail and, presumably, the better quality of weather (not climate) forecasting.
Having lots of barometric pressure measurements attached to a device that can accurately determine location and time can be a useful source of data. For the National Weather Service, the National Security Agency and other fun TLAs. The utility for the weather service is obvious, for the NSA not so much but I believe it has to do with overall conductivity of aluminum foil, or something along those lines.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Her brother is the Kwisatz Haderach...
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Now with even less privacy!!!
They can already triangulate you anyway based off cell tower data, along with any number of phone-home apps that you joyfully agreed to the EULA.
Even I'm not seeing a privacy correlation between barometric pressure and YOU (adjusts tin-foil hat)
Now they can tell how high you are.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It can help GPS fixes be acquired faster. Barometers provide a rough estimate of altitude and can aid GPS fixes. See https://plus.google.com/+DanMorrill/posts/jVJhPyouWDP
Which technology would that be? Definitely not processor technology.