Eric Savitz, in an article about Intel in Barrons describe the Intel Ubifit Garden:
"Intel built a device roughly the size of a pager that contains a variety of digital sensors, including a thermometer, a barometer, a 3-axis accelerometer, a microphone, a digital compass and sensors for humidity and for visible and infrared light. Worn on your collar or belt, the device then tracks all of your physical activity during the day. Based on the sensor data, plus some special algorithms, it can apparently tell when you are standing around doing nothing and when you are walking, running, biking or doing other physical tasks. The data are then sent wirelessly to your cellphone, which displays -- I am not making this up -- a bunch of digital flowers. The more activity you engage in, the more your digital flowers grow."
Why do I blog this? another example of a ubicomp lifelogging device, what I am curious about here is how this whole range of sensor is employed, how do they turn this constant flow of information (temperature? pression? microphone?) into something meaningful. The underlying question being: how a huge mess is transformed into a relevant summary of the situation (for the user)?
Besides, the article describes some examples of the Intel Day 2007, have a look also on the company website (e-Madrasas in Morocco, new models of time in mobile situations, portable navigation devices that would automatically aligning the displayed map with the real world, etc.), some intriguing stuff there.