Mobile phone sensors and crowdsourced citizen science

Finally have 1/2 a day to luxuriate in back copies of The Economist. Came across an article about mobile phone sensors and the future of data gathering. A great read and especially apropos The Extraordinaries in its closing paragraphs:

"Some computer scientists look forward to the day when mobile phones and sensors can provide a central nervous system for the entire planet. An abundance of sensors, they believe, will lead to two things. First, the amount of data will increase, allowing scientists to build more realistic models. Alessandro Vespignani of Indiana University compares the current state of affairs to weather forecasting a century ago, before satellites had provided meteorologists with the data to build and optimise mathematical models. When it comes to problems such as tracking and predicting the spread of diseases and other environmental hazards, he argues, scientists can never get enough data.

Second, once people are able to contribute data to research projects from their mobile phones, it could provide an ideal way to broaden public involvement in scientific activities. This would be the next logical step after the popularity of web-based participation in scientific research, from folding proteins to categorising photographs of galaxies. Eric Paulos, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, predicts the rise of “citizen scientists” able to measure and sample their surroundings wherever they go. When people can report mundane variables such as the level of traffic noise in their street or the degree of air pollution at the bus stop, he argues, their outlook on science changes. “People develop a relationship with and a sense of ownership over the data,” he says. He foresees amateur experts being driven by a new sense of volunteerism, the 21st-century equivalent of cleaning up the neighbourhood park."

Every time we turn around, there seems to be another article about crowdsourcing and volunteerism. The moment is ripe. 

Comments

[kare anderson]

Citizens might be enlisted not only to look "outside' at their surroundings but "inside" to self-tracking, as many are already doing. See. for example what Alexandra Carmichael is doing
CureTogether brings patients and reseachers together to do open source health research on the road to finding cures for human disease.
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2009/03/12/self-tracking-could-save-your-life-or-make-it-more-fun-with-others/