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Intelligent Satellite Notices Volcanic Activity
Dik Zak points us to this NASA page about a new generation of intelligent Earth observation satellites. From the article: "The Indonesian volcano Talang on the island of Sumatra had been dormant for centuries when, in April 2005, it suddenly rumbled to life. A plume of smoke rose 1000 meters high and nearby villages were covered in ash. Fearing a major eruption, local authorities began evacuating 40,000 people. UN officials, meanwhile, issued a call for help: Volcanologists should begin monitoring Talang at once. Little did they know that, high above Earth, a small satellite was already watching the volcano. No one had told it to. EO-1 (short for "Earth Observing 1") noticed the warning signs and started monitoring Talang on its own. Indeed, by the time many volcanologists were reading their emails from the UN, 'EO-1 already had data,' says Steve Chien, leader of JPL's Artificial Intelligence Group."
It was December the 3rd, the day skynet became self aware....
...)!
What an absolutely awesome piece of self identifying hotzone locating piece of hardware, the guys at Cyberdyne must have had a field day making it.
And now the intelligence is growing. "We're teaching EO-1 to use sensors on other satellites." Examples: Terra and Aqua, two NASA satellites which fly over every part of Earth twice a day. Each has a sensor onboard named MODIS. It's an infrared spectrometer able to sense heat from forest fires and volcanoes--just the sort of thing EO-1 likes to study. "We make MODIS data available to EO-1," says Chien, "so when Terra or Aqua see something interesting, EO-1 can respond."
This thing sounds like it can detect a fart from orbit!
What I want to know is if all this processing actually occurs onboard the sat, or if its a land based super computer brain?
Are these machines by chance running Linux? or are they using another VX-Works OS?
For the first time every I really think it could be possible for us to build a beowolf cluster of linux running space fem-bots, all we need to do is sabotage the main dev tree (if(GPS.Height>'200miles')
Year of the desktop? PAH! This year - the world!
liqbase
....tomorrow, Sarah Connor.
And then we're all in trouble.
"I for one welcome our new satellite overlords."
"I wonder what would happen if we created a beowulf cluster of them?"
I wonder if it notices hot chicks when there's no interesting volcanos?
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
"Is this real intelligence? "Absolutely," he says. EO-1 passes the basic test: "If you put the system in a box and look at it from the outside, without knowing how the decisions are made, would you say the system is intelligent?" Chien thinks so."
Does anyone else find this disturbing. Reminds me of that episode of Star Trek season 2 Episode 12, 16 minutes in, 45 seconds where.......errr never mind.
Notice to the Slashdot grammarstapo community: there are people out there who can use both "it's" and "its" correctly--In the same sentence!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I replaced this for the 'beep' in Windows once. Was funny for a few days.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Sure it will help people, just not people in LA.
Play Command HQ online
If you find such a place, please let me know and I'll begin preparations to move immediately. Just msg me in private, because I don't want everyone else moving in and spoiling the place.
No, it just snickered. It's seen a couple of other things coming our way too, but whenever the operators try to get more information is just says "Oh you'll find out. You'll find out... soon enough."