Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Penguins Invade the North Pole

Posted by michael on from the not-as-good-as-jennycam dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes "Thanks to a project of the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a webcam has for the first time been installed at the North Pole -- one which runs on Embedded Linux (uClinux), no less! The device was installed on April 28, 2002 and is now logging four images a day, which are available for viewing on NOAA's publicly accessible website. This article at LinuxDevices.com describes the Linux-based webcam (called the NetCam), opens up the device to see what embedded hardware and software are inside, and explains why the NetCam's developers used Embedded Linux as the basis of their design."

7 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Penguin transportation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting
    I've always been intrigued by the penguins and know that they live only in the South Pole.

    However, would these wonderful creatures survive if we were to transport a colony of them to the North Pole? The environment should be about the same weatherwise, but what about the predators. Any insight?

    1. Re:Penguin transportation by LadyLucky · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There are penguins native to New Zealand waters too. I have even seen penguins in the Auckland harbour, when out kayaking in it. Just little ones, very cute. They look like ducks, and are about the same size, though they do have front flippers.

      --
      dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
  2. A use for Iridium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did anyone else notice that at the bottom of the web page it says "the images are transmitted using the Iridium network"?

    Neat.

  3. Time zone? by Ark42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What time zone is the north poll in? All of them? None of them? I see the pics say GMT...

    --
    Morphing Software
  4. Re:say what? by delta407 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It only produces 4 pictures per day because it's run off of solar power; they're being smart and conserving electricity. Besides, it has to upload the pictures over a 2400-baud modem through a satellite uplink, which is bound to take up more juice than the CCD and JPEG compression combined.

    Overall, I'd say they're being pretty smart -- you're not going to run streaming video through 802.11b running on a nine volt battery at the north pole.

  5. Did StarDot Ever Make the Source Available? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Wasn't there a Slashdot article about StarDot not making their GPL embedded webcam source available about a year ago?

  6. Ice Cap.... by 11390036 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The land mass located at the geographic north pole moves between 5 and 10 miles per day... Do they have someone that will be moving the webcam to account for the ice cap drift??? What about during the summer when the ice becomes dangerous that walking on it is a hazard????

    Good idea, but hard work!