When I heard that Motorola Xoom has a barometer, I wondered how useful it is to include such a sensor in a tablet. So far it has proven to be completely useless, but the future sensors ready for mobile phones could change that. An editor of New York Times spoke as the representative of a manufacturer of microelectromechanical sensors or MEMS who explained to him that in future phones we could have sensors that detect altitude, temperature, humidity level, heartbeat, etc.
Mr. Vigna said the next smartphones would have altimeter sensors that would be able to detect your elevation. These sensors will tell people what floor they are on in a building, or could be used to more precisely determine where you are in relation to your friends on a location-based service, he said. After you use a new phone for a short period of time, it will start to learn your patterns and automatically lock or unlock the phone accordingly. This could be used for more secure banking too.
An altimeter would tell you what altitude you are at, a temperature sensor would tell you the outside temperature, a perspiration sensor could be useful in games, etc. All these sensors will sooner or later be implemented in our terminals and will help us interact with them. The gyroscope represented the first step towards the implementation of this kind of less conventional sensors and Apple established a standard since the launch of the iPhone 4. The sensors are ready, it remains to be seen who will take the first step in their implementation.
