Earth Equity News

Mulling Backyard Wind Power? Check Your iPhone. By Todd Woody, NYTimes, October 22, 2009. "Thinking of putting a wind turbine in your backyard? Mariah Power is introducing a program that will let you measure the wind speed around your house by pointing your iPhone toward the sky. The application uses the phone's microphone to capture wind noise. It filters out ambient sound and an algorithm converts the result into a decibel rating that corresponds to wind speed, according to Bill Westerman, a principal at Create with Context, a Silicon Valley digital design company that developed the app for Mariah... Mariah, based in Reno, Nev., makes the Windspire, 1.2-kilowatt residential turbine with horizontal blades that looks more like a piece of modern art than a conventional windmill. The company designed the 30-foot-tall turbine to operate in areas with a minimum average wind speed of 10 miles per hour... Amy Berry, a Mariah spokeswoman. cautioned that the iPhone app was designed more as a marketing and consciousness-raising tool rather than as a scientific instrument to determine a backyard's suitability for a wind turbine... Mr. Westerman said he tested the Windspire app by comparing its readings to those of a wind-measuring device called an anemometer. The app was accurate within 1.5 m.p.h., he said."