On Oct 20, 2010, at 9:23 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:

>>> now that device orientation, geolocation, camera etc. have been
>>> spec'ed:
>>> Is there any intent to provide an API for pressure sensors?
>>> 
>>> This might well be the next hip feature in smartphones ...
>> 
>> Note that differential pressure measurements from nearby locations can
>> be better at determining
>> altitude differences than GPS, plus, they work indoors.
> 
> Are there other use cases apart from guessing the altitude? It figuring out 
> the device altitude is the use case, shouldn't the API expose the altitude 
> and allow the altitude to be computed by the browser or by the operating 
> system from a pressure sensor, from GPS or both?
> 

Having worked in meteorology, I can tell you that, if every cell phone had a 
barometer attached, that data could and would be used to 
improve "micro-forecasts" over densely populated regions. It should be possible 
to track storm fronts and the like to the 100 meter level - imagine an app that 
gave you a 1 minute warning on the need for an umbrella. 

I am not going to pass any judgement on how hip this would be, but those are 
the uses I can see. 

Regards
Marshall


> -- 
> Henri Sivonen
> hsivo...@iki.fi
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
> 

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