Next Generation Of Sensors In Mobile Phones?

When the iPhone first came out with all the various sensors, there was suddenly a flood of apps in the app store that were just building off it, from games that required to you tilt your phone left and right, making music via the gyroscope that was built into the phone and of course who could forget the GPS that made Google Maps such an indispensable app especially when you’re lost in a foreign country.

So what else could we see in the next generation of sensors? According to Benedetto Vigna, general manager of the MEMS division of STMicroelectronics, he said that in the next generation of smartphones, they would have altimeter sensors that would be able to detect your elevation. These sensors could tell you what floor you 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. Facebook check-in’s already have something similar if you can recall.

Other possibilities include heart monitors, perspiration or mood sensors, and temperature or humidity sensors which could be utilized in games. Imagine a game that read your heart rate and adapted the gameplay according to how excited you were. What do you guys think of these sensors? Unnecessary? Novelty? Practical?