Fullpower: A platform for crowdsensing?
by Imran Ali
Back in October 2006, I started to track stories and developments in an emerging field I termed Crowdsensing; the use of mobile devices and networks to create adhoc sensor networks for applications such as weather forecasting, air quality and road traffic services.
Indeed, developments such as the Participatory Urbanism project and Intel’s Ergo underline how mobile sensor networks are manifesting themselves in useful, real world services.
Philippe Kahn’s Fullpower Technologies promises to equip handsets with multiple sensors that may enable a groundswell of crowdsensing innovation. Though, Kahn’s namechecks sensors such as accelerometers and cameras, it’s unclear whether Fullpower is working with handset manufacturers, networks, looking at developing software stacks, UI innovations or creating reference hardware designs.
However, Fullpower’s site does allude to an ‘inference engine’ capable of ingesting motion, imaging, proximity, light, pressure and GPS data alongside very specific medical data such as heart rate and blood glucose; implying some intriguing mobile medical applications.
Curiously, the company is hiring a games development team, so perhaps the first Fullpower deployment will perhaps be some form of an alternative reality game…
Nevertheless, this is an area and a company that may have some profound implications for the nature of messaging and hence an emerging technology worth tracking.
