<div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_quality"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/SignboardAirQualityHouston.JPG/220px-SignboardAirQualityHouston.JPG" alt="Wikipedia on Air Quality" width="220" height="165" /></a><p>Wikipedia on Air Quality</p></div> <p>The ACM reported today on a <a title="USC article Monitor the Air with a Smartphone, Sep10" href="http://uscnews.usc.edu/science_technology/monitor_the_air_-_with_a_smartphone.html" target="_blank">University of Southern California initiative to use smartphones as air quality sensors</a>. Per the article:</p> <p><em><span>The user takes a picture of the sky while the sun is shining, which can be compared to established models of sky luminance to estimate visibility. Visibility is directly related to the concentration of harmful "haze aerosols," tiny particles from dust, engine exhaust, mining or other sources in the air. Such aerosols turn the blue of a sunlit clear sky gray.</span></em></p> <p><em><span>There is one caveat: It has to be exactly the right picture. The visibility/pollution models are based on the viewing geometry of the image and the position of the sun.</span></em></p> <p>I guess the only problem here is that the sensor requires specific control by the user, and is therefore dependent on user behavior. But its an interesting area of progress anyway! And of course collating that information will be a CEP application area&#8230;</p> <a href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?&amp;linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftibcoblogs.com%2Fcep%2F2010%2F09%2F22%2Fsocial-sensor-networks-for-social-cep%2F&amp;linkname=Social%20Sensor%20Networks%20for%20social%20CEP%26%238230%3B"><img src="http://tibcoblogs.com/cep/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_120_16.png" width="120" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark" /></a> <p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href="http://tibcoblogs.com/cep/2010/06/26/case-management-social-bpm-and-other-extensions-to-the-business-process-idea/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Case Management, Social BPM and other extensions to the business process idea">Case Management, Social BPM and other extensions to the business process idea</a></li><li><a href="http://tibcoblogs.com/cep/2008/09/04/sensor-events-business-event/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Sensor Events, Business Event…">Sensor Events, Business Event&#8230;</a></li></ol></p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ComplexEventProcessing/~4/N3Cj2fBiypY" height="1" width="1" />