#MEMS-Packed #Smartphones Creating World's Biggest Wireless Sensor Net

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) impart the smarts in smartphones, but have also created the world's fastest growing wireless sensor network. Look for an expanding palette of applications harnessing the wireless sensors in smartphones for everything from earthquake prediction to smog alerts. RColinJohnson @NextGenLog


Freescale's MEMS accelerometer houses the MEMS chip (right) alongside its CMOS circuitry (left) in the same package.

Here is what EETimes says about smartphones as wireless sensors: The ever-expanding ecosystem of smartphone apps owes a great deal to MEMS sensors. Indeed, smartphones, with their always-on Internet access and growing complement of sensor technologies, are quickly becoming the planet’s premier wireless sensor network. MEMS sensors in mobile handsets are allowing apps that not only dazzle users but could one day monitor the pulse of the planet. Apple began the revolution by equipping the iPhone with an accelerometer to switch its display automatically from portrait to landscape orientation. The competition quickly followed suit. Now Apple has a storeful of novel apps that exploit the iPhone’s accelerometer for gaming, health monitoring, sports training and countless other uses thought up by legions of developers...
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