I’ve wondered for some time what PDAs and the like might evolve into as we move into space. Specifically, I can see space-based devices being equipped with simple environment-monitoring sensors (air composition, radiation) which will help alert users to dangers peculiar to the space environment which are difficult or impossible for a human to recognize unassisted.
And then along come this:
Kiera Ormut-Fleishman had more! She came with a prototype of Maintenant, a system designed to make us more ecologically aware.
Maintenant revolves around the Social Pedometer/So-Ped, a device which connects to your mp3 player and auditorily alerts you whenever you’re passing through a high-air pollution saturated area.
The So-Ped, equipped with a carbon monoxide and methane sensor, is continually searching the air you breathe as you walk around. When a higher level of gases is detected, the sensor sets off the voice chip and alerts you to this. First the alert temporarily cuts off your music then you get a tip that says how to save up energy, for example.
There is only one So-Ped and it is not for sale. However, you can sign up to test the So-Ped when it becomes available in your area, you will then be able to use it for two weeks.
Granted, being preached to about energy conservation every time one walks by a tailpipe is not quite what I had in mind, but the core idea here is right: a device normally used for other, pedestrian (heh…) purposes, which keeps watch in the background for certain dangers and interrupts to warn the user when these dangers appear. Apart from space, there are numerous uses for such things here and now: warning asthmatics of rising concentrations of some personal environmental trigger, for example, or alerting industrial workers (and people living near their facilities) to elevated levels of airborne chemicals before they become a health or safety threat.
Give it another ten years, and things like this will probably be ubiquitous — on Earth.
I agree with the trend, though the particular application describe in the link is pretty absurd. Carbon monoxide? The only place I would worry about CO levels are while sleeping at night near an old furnace, and better to have a permanent device installed in that event (I always have one in my house). I wonder if that is the intended use, or if the developer is worried about transient, everyday exposure.
And methane? What silent-but-deadly hazard is that meant to protect the user from?
“And methane? What silent-but-deadly hazard is that meant to protect the user from?”
An Inconvenient Quiff.
To judge by the link, the “intended use” is limited to an art project with enviro overtones. It doesn’t sound much like she’s planning to turn the device into a marketable product. Probably too late anyway since an idea like this has got to be in the pipe for a future iPhone.
I wonder how you would keep the thing calibrated? I’m not an expert, but don’t you have to treat real meters like this with a lot of care to keep them in calibration, adn periodically recalibrate them? If the sensors aren’t permanently accurate, the things would only give pass/fail readings like a smoke detector. I mean, they could tell you that something bad for you was there or not, but not give you a real measurement, just that the bad thing had crossed a limit.