“Being allergic, I am (vaguely) dreaming about someday having a “citizens’ network” of sensors to monitor pollution in real time and high resolution. Such data cannot perform miracles, but being prepared is better than being unprepared. Have I already been blocked from doing this?”
We have decided to make this week a kind of demonstrator for our kind of thinking, showing what a project like this can and cannot do. This is as concrete as it gets.
The special theme we chose is air pollution. More specifically, solutions that would allow asthmatics to get information about the air pollution situation.
To make things as concrete as possible, the whole week revolves around just one patent,
US 8,127,002 (“Hypothesis development based on user and sensing device data”). The narrow focus has a purpose: it concretely shows what kinds of vulnerabilities might enable trolls to be attacked with their own weapons.
I asked the question: could this patent block a person with allergies from getting information about the air pollution levels at a location he is going to?
Answer: possibly. Possibly not.
Continue reading Pollution week 1: “My” Application