Comments on: Science – There’s An App For That http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/science-theres-an-app-for-that/ Your Daily Fix of Neuroscience, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:39:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1 By: Daniel http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/science-theres-an-app-for-that/comment-page-1/#comment-47262 Daniel Sun, 16 Dec 2012 16:55:18 +0000 http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=5095#comment-47262 Hey, Steve, Did you see the papers on the "about" category of the so called DreamCatcher app? :-) If it isn't a prank, those guys do have a sense of humor. The automatically generated "Deconstructing the Transistor with Mucigen" made me laugh. http://superflyguy.co.uk/dreamcatcher/wp-content/themes/iPhoneApp/scientific/Report_1.pdf Thanks for the -- always great -- post. Cheers! Hey, Steve,

Did you see the papers on the “about” category of the so called DreamCatcher app? :-)
If it isn’t a prank, those guys do have a sense of humor.
The automatically generated “Deconstructing the Transistor with Mucigen” made me laugh.
http://superflyguy.co.uk/dreamcatcher/wp-content/themes/iPhoneApp/scientific/Report_1.pdf

Thanks for the — always great — post. Cheers!

]]> By: François de La Bruère http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/science-theres-an-app-for-that/comment-page-1/#comment-47104 François de La Bruère Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:34:38 +0000 http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=5095#comment-47104 A pretty important hurdle that wasn't mentioned for the earthquake sensing app is power consumption. The way phone manufacturers manage to make phones last an entire day on a fully charged battery is not by making better batteries, but by closely managing and restricting battery usage. Sensors and radios are either shut down or put in a low-power (a.k.a. standby) state as soon as the user isn't actively using them, and apps that require running in the background are either recommended to or outright forced to shut down depending on the manufacturer's policies. Even so, certain fancy phone models you can buy today don't even last a full day under "normal" use. Crowdsourcing is definitely a very promising avenue for scientific research, and there already are plenty of ways phones can be used in which users provide sporadic input throughout the day. But it will probably be a while longer before we can expect widespread use of phone apps that run in the background all day long like the earthquake sensing app described. Battery technology brings rain to yet another parade... ;) A pretty important hurdle that wasn’t mentioned for the earthquake sensing app is power consumption.

The way phone manufacturers manage to make phones last an entire day on a fully charged battery is not by making better batteries, but by closely managing and restricting battery usage. Sensors and radios are either shut down or put in a low-power (a.k.a. standby) state as soon as the user isn’t actively using them, and apps that require running in the background are either recommended to or outright forced to shut down depending on the manufacturer’s policies. Even so, certain fancy phone models you can buy today don’t even last a full day under “normal” use.

Crowdsourcing is definitely a very promising avenue for scientific research, and there already are plenty of ways phones can be used in which users provide sporadic input throughout the day. But it will probably be a while longer before we can expect widespread use of phone apps that run in the background all day long like the earthquake sensing app described.

Battery technology brings rain to yet another parade… ;)

]]>