“Carbon Footprint”. What a crock.

There’s my nomination for the comment of the week. It’s nice and concise without any useless details like what makes it a crock. Comments are always better without facts to back them up.

Steve

He has tested the software in Nokia and Blackberry phones, using computer algorithms to predict the kind of transport a person is taking. He claims that in tests over the past year, the software was almost 100% accurate in working out when people were on airplanes or trains; it was between 65-75% accurate at guessing when people travelled on buses.

So it’s not very accurate at detecting bus travel. I think it would also have difficulty with subways, as GPS doesn’t work very well (or at all) underground. (I suppose the GPS could detect if you disappeared and then reappeared far away and guess you were on a subway.)

Also, without user input, how does it know what kind of vehicle you’re in. You could be driving an electric car or a motorhome, or flying in a Lear or a 747.

Worse, without knowing how many people are in your vehicle, will it vastly overestimate your footprint? For example, it won’t be able to take into account if you’re carpooling or vanpooling. Or, if you’re on an airplane or bus, how will it break down your carbon footprint among all of the passengers? Will it assume some average passenger capacity (a private jet is probably worse than a full 747) or just blame you for the entire impact?

Using GPS is fine for tracking distance and speed, but allowing user input is necessary for any kind of accuracy.

Steve

-CB