You might not own the data of your air quality monitor
airgradient.com
airgradient.com
Interestingly, it's not clear that seismic imaging of a mountain (say) is copyrightable, but if you point your camera to that same mountain, it's suddenly creative, and therefore protected.
Not that I think recipes should be copyrighted, the question is more for how legally they are different.
It may also contain patented and trademarked things.
But the process itself of
- get sand
- mold
- make wafer
Is not copyrighted.
This is called idea - expression.
You can’t copyright the idea but you can copyright the expression. (It’s why recipes have stories about grandma. If someone scrapes that story that’s copyright infringement)
As an extension, you can copyright an operation manual, but not the "general" expression of the pure operational steps themselves. Someone else could rewrite the operational manual "from scratch".
- Copyright: "I" created $thing. I have the right to distribute copies of that exact thing. I may grant others the right to distribute $thing I've made.
- Patent: I have written down $process. No one else before me wrote down this process (that the patent office has record of.) This process makes a thing. No one else has the right to use that process unless I agree to it for about 20 years in the US.
And for good measure:
- Trademark: I sell $thing under $brand. No one else has the right to sell similar $things with a $brand that sounds like mine.
Does this help to clarify?
https://www.pame.is/projects/arctic-marine-shipping/amsa/vol....
But to do things in a pleasing way for legal people, how could we proceed ?
I'm planning to build a little Arduino- or raspi-based device to own the data. All I managed to find were (non-blood) pressure sensors and I'm unsure whether these could be used for blood pressure monitoring and how I'd place them against the hand to get readings of reasonable quality.
If this approach is a no-go, a ready device with some physical interface (and no "cloud"-related garbage) allowing readings would do.
[1] (iOS) https://apps.apple.com/au/app/medm-blood-pressure/id10409095...
[2] (Android) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.medm.medmb...
The idea (the traditional way) is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphygmomanometer
1) you place the stethoscope between the arm and the inflatable band
2) you pump air in the band
3) at a certain pressure you will start hearing the heart beats
4) you continue pumping until you cannot hear them anymore + a little bit more
5) you start slowly release pressure until you can hear the heart beats (at this point what you read on the manometer is the max pressure or systolic)
6) you continue slowly releasing pressure until you cannot hear the heart beats anymore (at this point what you read on the manometer is the min pressure or diastolic)
The electronic device replace the hand pump with an electric pump, the manometer with a pressure sensor and the stethoscope with the capability to detect oscillations in the pressure from the same sensor.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_pressure_measurement#Aus...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_pressure_measurement#Osc...
I believe that the issue in a home made electronic device is not so much the sensor but rather the conversion from raw data of the sensor (oscillometric waveform) into heartbeats and the speed with which the band is inflated and deflated (size and speed of pump, accuracy of the release valve).
[1] both the ones that take pressure on the arm and those that take it at the wrist
People have figured out how to run them off raspberry pis since I believe though, so I should sort it out to run cloudless.
Is the software necessary to use the device - you could just not install it, or someone could write a third party driver that doesn’t make you agree to these terms.
BTW are there any sensors that encrypt and sign data before sending out for real security? I am not able to construct such a device, so I hope anybody did already? preferably open hardware?
It's a lazy, low effort, stereotyping take that people in tech tell themselves to feel less guilty, and that's all it is.
So is the take that average people think that facts about the current air quality should be owned by people.
If you ask an average person what's the current temperature is or if it's raining outside they will likely tell you if they know. People don't feel a need to try and monopolize the knowledge of things like that.
Also, when asking people, framing is a huge confounder.
If you ask a bunch of people of average or below average tech literacy if they care whether they own the data from their fitness trackers, the majority would probably say no.
But if instead you asked them whether they like the fact that they have to pay a monthly subscription fee to Google/Oura/whatever, the distribution would likely change quite a lot.
We of course know these questions are secretly the same question.
You defined a superset(consumer of smart devices), but you're still missing a metric.
Is it average IQ? Tech literacy? Legal expertise? Paranoia?
Without specifying these things, you are essentially saying nothing all. Does not compile.
Without generalisation, or being able to group things together you'll find it hard to make any statements about anything.
That's what that means, and what "the average HN reader" understands without having to be pedantic about it.
all i need to do is look at it occasionally
Suppose Corp.X distributes free cloud connected air quality monitors across neighbourhood Z in an act of seeming largesse.
Fifteen years later the surviving members of the District Z Carcinoma Club are still fighting appeals to gain access to the pooled historic data which each of them have contributed to.
At the very least log your own data | buy your own monitors | be sure you have right of access regardless of "ownership" | etc.