Unbeknownst to the San Francisco’s residents, their street sweeping trucks have become mobile environmental sensing units, thanks to Intel’s new Common Sense research program.

Wireless sensors taking measurements of the local environment’s carbon monoxide, ozone, and nitrous dioxide have been hitching rides through the city and feeding data back to the home base, the researchers revealed during Research@Intel Day at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

Using Yahoo Maps, the researchers geographically visualized the data, as seen in the screenshot. Eric Paulos, a researcher on the project, imagines that one day citizen-scientists could carry similar sensors in their pockets, communicating wirelessly with their phones.

“This could drive a fundamental shift in how you relate to your mobile,” Paulos told Wired.com. “Maybe you’re mapping not what’s the quickest route, but the cleanest.”

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Scientists at Purdue and Notre Dame Universities say they’re developing a sensor network to prevent city sewage from flowing into waterways during storms.
The researchers are working with EmNet LLC on a wireless sensor network for the city of South Bend, Ind., using 105 manhole-mounted sensors and “smart valves” to automatically hold back storm surges of rainwater and sewage until the storm has passed.

“To our knowledge, this monitoring system will be the first of its kind in the world because it will be the largest wireless sensor network in a permanent, industrial setting,” said Luis Montestruque of EmNet.

More info here.