Thursday, June 5, 2008
So Who the ZebraNet?
GPS is kind of like the internet, in that it doesn't really do anything by itself, but by providing people with information, it can be an extremely useful tool. As such, it's interesting to see what people do with it.
For example, who would have imagined ZebraNet? It's a kind of pony-express, but with stripes! Actually I made that up. Really, it's an academic ecology project.
Daniel Rubenstein, director of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, and Princeton engineering professor Margaret Martonosi got together and started ZebraNet. The goal: use GPS collars to track the daily habits of zebras in Kenya.
They provide more information than the traditional radio-transmitter collar, and researchers have been able to remotely gather information about everything from eating and mating habits to velocities and turning angles. Especially useful: being able to collect data at night.
But something like this could only be a result of GPS, never a cause. What I'm saying is that if you were to try and setup the immense infrastructure for a project like ZebraNet like this, you'd be laughed out of the financier's office. "We want to track zebras nocturnal behavior, and to do so we will need to launch at least three satellites over Kenya." Never happen. But since the satellites are already there, the network is in place, we can implement it to gain knowledge about useful (if not necessarily practical) information.
And I draw my comparison back to the internet. When Al Gore invented it back in the day (I'm only telling this joke because if I don't, you will, and I'd hate to let you take credit for it), he could never have imagined e-commerce, the dot-com explosion, or eBay. The designers simply understood that if you give people a way to communicate, and give them access to information, they'll figure out interesting things to do with it
For example, who would have imagined ZebraNet? It's a kind of pony-express, but with stripes! Actually I made that up. Really, it's an academic ecology project.
Daniel Rubenstein, director of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, and Princeton engineering professor Margaret Martonosi got together and started ZebraNet. The goal: use GPS collars to track the daily habits of zebras in Kenya.
They provide more information than the traditional radio-transmitter collar, and researchers have been able to remotely gather information about everything from eating and mating habits to velocities and turning angles. Especially useful: being able to collect data at night.
But something like this could only be a result of GPS, never a cause. What I'm saying is that if you were to try and setup the immense infrastructure for a project like ZebraNet like this, you'd be laughed out of the financier's office. "We want to track zebras nocturnal behavior, and to do so we will need to launch at least three satellites over Kenya." Never happen. But since the satellites are already there, the network is in place, we can implement it to gain knowledge about useful (if not necessarily practical) information.
And I draw my comparison back to the internet. When Al Gore invented it back in the day (I'm only telling this joke because if I don't, you will, and I'd hate to let you take credit for it), he could never have imagined e-commerce, the dot-com explosion, or eBay. The designers simply understood that if you give people a way to communicate, and give them access to information, they'll figure out interesting things to do with it
Labels: GPS, technology
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