bopuc/weblog

In the next few years, the combination of low power sensors + low cost rfid chips will bring incredible possibilities. I'm interested to see what you have to say about that :D

"As you are looking where to park you know not to leave it there in that exact position because despite appearances you know the statistical likelyhood of it geting wet."

Why would anyone care about getting their car wet? That's just plumb weird, even weirder than my neighbour who comes out with a giant feather duster every single morning to wipe down his car.

If the statistical likelihood of getting wet is anything more than 0%, you should probably just assume it'll get wet and plan accordingly. Jan's a smart cat, but this is a silly example. The owner of that scooter probably has a cheap rag under the seat he uses to wipe it down when necessary.

right right but he does go on to ask

"For such as system to exist, who would be motivated by what reasons to share real time weather data? Who would seek to manipulate this data and in what contexts?

The challenge with all this is not to gather or even to share the data, but to sufficiently understand the user's context to present the data in an appropriate format and time. All non-trivial tasks."

it may be silly but it'd be a heck of an exercise no? perhaps something to be left to techno artists...

In any case it got me all giddy at the prospect. ;)

I can't remember who it was, but a group at Keio University had a research project in which they had sensors fixed to cabs that could measure how much the wheels were slipping (I guess brakes locking up but the vehicle still moving) as a measure of "dangerous conditions" on roads — it mostly happened during snow. It seemed cool, but also a weird thing to measure. Maybe it was commissioned by some insurer or local safety authority or something. Anyway, the data was supposedly transmitted in some blogject like fashion. I can imagine that being propogated backward to other vehicles or some central uber traffic authority.

aha! there you go!
I love it. :D

Julian, The project has a room with screen and camera to demonstrate interactions and ubiquitous technologies on the same floor than mine. In fact right now, I'm 20 meters of it.

The researcher Hide Tokuda is working on this kind of things.