Social Sensor Network

Today I was attracted by two news:

1. Hardware add-on for iPhone-iPod: iCarte NFC/RFID Reader. This device allows iPhone/iPod users to be enabled for Near Field Communication (NFC) for contact-less payments and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
   
2. HP Labs with a project called CeNSE (Central Nervous System for the Earth) which use billions of tiny, cheap tough and exquisitely sensitive detectors.
   "... The technology behind this is based on nano-sensing research done by HP Labs. The sensors are similar to RFID chips, but in this case they are tiny accelerometers which detect motion and vibrations. The first CeNSE sensor to be put into the field by HP Labs is, according to the company, "about 1,000 times more sensitive than accelerometers used in a Wii, an iPhone or an automobile's airbag system." Other sensors planned in future include ones for light, temperature, barometric pressure, airflow and humidity."

I'm always fascinated by electronic devices and specially if they are used for solving people problems, making life better and/or safer for all.

A possible scenario as combination of both devices could be to built a map globally accessible with the results of signals detected by those sensors (for example the temperatures measured or motion detection for detecting earthquakes or other possible dangers). The role of iPhone could be to activate the read of the measure when it is near the sensor (by RFID activation) and send a tweet on a dedicated channel automatically or making a dedicated application that updates the global map via twitter.

Another possibility is to generate the sensing map as a Google Earth layer. The iPohne can then contribute to this map by uploading measure coming from its sensors, like magnetic field measurements (for 3Gs device) and level of noise with geo-referencing those measures before upload them to the Social Sensor Network on Google Earth.

Thanks for reading ;)