Vint Cerf Optimistic About Internet's Future, Continued Innovation

Anti-Globalism takes us to The Observer for an article by Vint Cerf on how far the internet has come, and how much can still be accomplished through its development. Cerf says, "We're nearing the tipping point for mobile computing to deliver timely, geographically and socially relevant information. Researchers in Japan recently proposed using data from vehicles' windscreen wipers and embedded GPS receivers to track the movement of weather systems through towns and cities with a precision never before possible. It may seem academic, but understanding the way severe weather, such as a typhoon, moves through a city could save lives. Further exploration can shed light on demographic, intellectual and epidemiological phenomena, to name just a few areas."

Comments

Rain sensing has been done

[Animats]

Back in the late 1970s, Bell Labs put several hundred direct-wired rain sensors around Murray Hill, NJ. (This isn't hard when you're the phone company.) They could then make "movies" of the patterns of rain when storms went through. This resulted in cute pictures, but didn't provide any predictive value, so it was dropped.

Oh well.