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From Radiation to Smog, Numbers for the Public
A facet of the Open{source|science|design} movement
Beyond Geiger counters, the group considered other opportunities for environmental monitoring and recognized that air quality reporting “suffered from a lot of the same problems as radiation,” Mr. Bonner said. The data is often licensed and unavailable for public distribution, and where it does exist, numbers tend to be imprecise spatial and temporal averages.
...
“We’ll be building a bunch of devices, but we’ll also be making all of the plans completely open,” Mr. Bonner said. “Hopefully the number of devices that get out there will far exceed what we can create.”
John Bracken, director of journalism and media innovation at the Knight Foundation, said that Safecast’s work was part of a growing embrace of mobile monitoring devices spun out of hacker and D.I.Y. culture. “A lot of groups are taking lessons from the software community and applying them to hardware,” he said. “It’s a really exciting time.”
...
Safecast is using the money from the Knight Foundation primarily for development and testing. All of the schematics and budget items will be available at no charge, meaning that Los Angelenos have a standing invitation to take part.
Eventually, Mr. Bonner and his team hope the pilot project will help underpin an international and citizen-run network of air quality monitors.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/from-radiation-to-smog-numbers-for-the-public/
...
“We’ll be building a bunch of devices, but we’ll also be making all of the plans completely open,” Mr. Bonner said. “Hopefully the number of devices that get out there will far exceed what we can create.”
John Bracken, director of journalism and media innovation at the Knight Foundation, said that Safecast’s work was part of a growing embrace of mobile monitoring devices spun out of hacker and D.I.Y. culture. “A lot of groups are taking lessons from the software community and applying them to hardware,” he said. “It’s a really exciting time.”
...
Safecast is using the money from the Knight Foundation primarily for development and testing. All of the schematics and budget items will be available at no charge, meaning that Los Angelenos have a standing invitation to take part.
Eventually, Mr. Bonner and his team hope the pilot project will help underpin an international and citizen-run network of air quality monitors.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/from-radiation-to-smog-numbers-for-the-public/