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/ >
