Over The Air
by Imran Ali
Not just an excuse to use a corny post title, but also to draw attention to Intel’s mobile air quality service, Ergo.
Though covered by Boing Boing early last month, Ergo is not simply interesting in that users can request information on local air quality by SMS, but more significantly part of a programme of work in Participatory Urbanism that seeks to marry sensing capabilities of handsets with architectures of participation and democracy.
Late last year, I wrote about the potential of what I called Crowdsensing - it’s really exciting to see others beginning to experiment in this space and starting to explore how messaging and communication may develop as handsets begin to collate as well as communicate.
