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Fifty 'Connected Cows' Already Have 5G (reuters.com)
A herd of dairy cows in the U.K. "are enjoying the benefits of 5G connectivity before you," reports Reuters:
For the cows, among the 5G-connected gadgets they are wearing is a collar that controls a robotic milking system. When the cow feels ready to be milked it will approach machine gates that will automatically open. The device recognizes the individual to precisely latch on to its teats for milking, while the cow munches on a food reward. At the government-funded Agricultural Engineering Precision Innovation Centre (Agri-EPI Centre) in Shepton Mallet, in southwest England, around 50 of the 180-strong herd is fitted with the 5G smart collars and health-monitoring ear tags.
But -- why?! The Verge explains: According to Reuters, Cisco is testing infrastructure for the eventual global rollout of 5G that could be used by various industries that are not traditionally in the tech bubble but are still dependent on increasingly sophisticated hardware and software. That includes farming. In this case, Cisco is trying out 5G in three rural locations...
It makes a whole lot of sense when you think about it: farms are large and spread-out spaces, and cows are often shuffled between grazing grounds and areas of the farm where they can be more easily milked and checked on. With the 5G collars, Cisco says farmers can keep tabs on the animals at all times of the day without having to physically trek out to observe the cows up close... The future is wonderful and weird, and farmers have access to it before you and I because without them, we all starve.
"We can connect every cow, we can connect every animal on this farm," Cisco's Nick Chrissos told Reuters, in what may be the strangest boast a Cisco executive has ever uttered in public. "That's what 5G can do for farming -- really unleash the power that we have within this farm, everywhere around the UK and everywhere around the world."
But -- why?! The Verge explains: According to Reuters, Cisco is testing infrastructure for the eventual global rollout of 5G that could be used by various industries that are not traditionally in the tech bubble but are still dependent on increasingly sophisticated hardware and software. That includes farming. In this case, Cisco is trying out 5G in three rural locations...
It makes a whole lot of sense when you think about it: farms are large and spread-out spaces, and cows are often shuffled between grazing grounds and areas of the farm where they can be more easily milked and checked on. With the 5G collars, Cisco says farmers can keep tabs on the animals at all times of the day without having to physically trek out to observe the cows up close... The future is wonderful and weird, and farmers have access to it before you and I because without them, we all starve.
"We can connect every cow, we can connect every animal on this farm," Cisco's Nick Chrissos told Reuters, in what may be the strangest boast a Cisco executive has ever uttered in public. "That's what 5G can do for farming -- really unleash the power that we have within this farm, everywhere around the UK and everywhere around the world."
So when a baby feels the need he or she can be individually recognized, latch on to a teat, and receive a food reward.
Not sure what 5G has got to do with this. Not a lot of detail, but I can't think of anything that wouldn't work on 4G, 3G or 2G for that matter.
Beta testing 5G on that herd, in order to prepare it for another herd.
At least we've been upgraded from lemmings. Or at least on paper we have.
I am no expert on anything related to wireless and broadband services, but something about this report seems a bit over-hyped, or am I missing something?
5G promises higher bandwidth and speed, but it does it also extend range? Does this a allow rancher's or farmer's cow's to communicate over a 50 mile ranch because 4G didn't do it? And if it's just a 50 acre spread with cell towers nearby, how does 5G help? It sounds like the applications, "Bessie phone home" to report that she hooked up to Mr. Milky is a rather low bandwidth need. Your old 2400 baud modem would probably suffice. If the intent is to download live video from a 500 head herd at once, maybe, or if you plan to download video so Bessie can watch the latest Star Wars movies and sour the milk, okay. But otherwise I do not understand how 5G is any better for this than any other telemetry technology of the past 15 years?
Or is this just a slow news day or marketing cow manure?
Can someone please enlighten me.
Slashdot, Moos for herds.
Depending on where you are, 2G is NOT going to be phased out any time soon. In fact, many places'll likely end up phasing out 3G and possibly 4G before 2G. Moreover, the only real place where the cows need coverage is the barn. So something that uses a short range telemetry band will work just fine, and probably use far less power to boot. It certainly isn't dependent on third party telco conglomerates and government planning and zoning approval to track your cows.
So the correct answer is: Publicity stunt.
If they add explosives to the 5G collar they can also remotely deal with the next Foot & Mouth outbreak.
And we very very definitely have free will! And not at all get rallied by whatever bandwagon is put in front of us, to tell us what we have to want! We are individu... Go Dems, fuck Reps! Err, I mean, go Reps, fuck Dems! Wait, what's it this year again? ... *pling* Ooh, a new iPhone!
farms are large and spread-out spaces, and cows are often shuffled between grazing grounds and areas of the farm where they can be more easily milked and checked on.
It makes no sense to us 5G for this because 5G is for dense areas that need high-speed. LoRaWAN is cheaper, lower power and has a range of over 10 kilometers.
They might as well use WiFi for the cows. This is stupid.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Your mad cow burgers, nerds.
We're talking femtocell-level here.
There are multiple 5G standards though. And one of them promises low power and big range usage. But that one can be and is already implemented in 4G. It's nowhere near 50 miles though. ;)
(2G could do 50 miles afaik, btw.
Yeah, I have to rewatch Wall-E.
That's the sound sheeple make.
When they tell you to stay in the building that's about to be demolished, remember to obey the authorities. AE911Truth Org
Set up each cow with a VR headset so you can herd them without herding them.
What he meant is that people are his cash cow and he can't wait to milk everyone when it's deployed.
cap: plowing
Not Soy Milk.
It's actual milk. Actual whey and casein. But it is produced by microflora instead of cows. And lactose-free.
Interesting! This 5G thing is leading us to a brave New world!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
The human herd does not require 5G (or wireless connectivity at all) to get milked. Although the 5G certainly helps, and can be dished out as the "reward" while being milked.
It will be spectacular when that infrastructure goes down for a few days...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I once worked on a defunct project to track the internal temperature of dairy cows. A rfid transmitter and temperature sensor were encapsulated in a bolus. When the cow walked by a rfid reader panel it would identify the cow and read its temperature. Great Idea but in the end, it wasn't fully funded. I still have a reader panel in my garage.
This approach might dramatically reduce animals' stress, if they can get milked immediately when needed. Relatedly, less stress means less cortisol, which means more nutritious, better-tasting meat. https://www.atlasobscura.com/a...
When the telecoms rolled out stuff like GPRS to support simple packet data applications. And lots of manufacturers embedded 2G GPRS modems in their products? Ant then the telecoms pulled the rug out from under 2G, rendering a lot of expensive equipment useless. Never again. Fooled me one, shame on you. Fool me again, shame on me.
Cows might not be a great example of this problem, as they are inevitably going to be rotated through a production line. Where new hardware can be fitted and the old stuff retired. Maybe the cellular companies can trade sheep (humans with fondleslabs) up to the latest shiny tech. But businesses have a much longer investment horizon for embedded hardware.
Have gnu, will travel.
We've been sold 3G service pack 2, aka. 3G LTE as 4G for years. Now this "5G", is it real 5G this time, or is it more like 3G service pack 3?
In other words, is it faster or slower than the several gigabits that 4G was supposed to give?
Where do I sign up for the free food and milking?
Just add those extra genes the Chinese researchers recently added to monkeys to the cows as well and have them be smarter about where their food is. Give them a smartwatch to tell the time and we're done.
The ethics of milking and eating cows that have near-human intelligence are of course, up for debate.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
A sensor in an ear tag or collar is not a substitute for a physical health check. The sensor can not tell if the cow has a rock stuck in its hoof for example, or if the cow has gastrointestinal problems. I worked in this field ten years ago building a multi-hop wireless network on cattle to electronically herd and track them. There are long standing patents on this technology in the US (USDA) and Australia (CSIRO). We decided to stop research after the US prison industry expressed interest.
Most bulls are aggressive because they are horny, rather than protecting a herd... What happens if you have a bull milking station connected to 5g that can relieve their stress on a daily or hourly basis? While we're at it, what happens if you put these collars on horny male workers and offer them 1-5 minute breaks with the milking machine to keep them working those long hard hours for up to 80 hours a week....
Can you play Cow Clicker with them?
got a free hand-job. Bad AI, but feels good. 5 Stars!
Table-ized A.I.
The main thing I want to know is, are these spherical cows? Numerous studies have taught me that science prefers the spherical cow.
The milk from connected cows
Swiss cows have been emjoying this luxury since at least 20 years. Works fine without 5g
2G specifically would have severe scalability problems. AFAIK, each 2G data link is basically a circuit-switched voice call that skips the modem part and goes straight to the bitstream. In landline terms... kind of like ISDN.
That's Circuit Switched Data, not the "2.5G" GPRS that's Just Fine if you want to toss a few bits into the air now and then.
The real problem is that of pretending that for this problem only 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G would count. Heck no. Much easier to pick a protocol specifically designed for low bitrate, low power, long range telemetry. Which 5G is not. You could build a national coverage network out of such a thing, too. In fact, the privatised ex-state telco here did just that with LoRaWAN. Meaning you can buy, at low telemetry rates, connectivity for your "IoT" devices all across the country; the telco offers the infrastructure. 5G really doesn't make sense for this purpose, nor do the comparisons limited to the other telco number-gees.
That would require human intervention, unless they are wirelessly charged when the cows are milked or something like that.
The very same Cisco which fixes a browser injection flaw in its routers by disallowing the curl user agent?
I mean: we might be scared at the perspective of some network infrastructure being bugged by enemy forces, but with this blatant incompetence we don't even need enemies.
This isn't going to end well.
5G is the end of man, man is no longer needed if everything can be hooked and steered by 5G. Thanks for clearing this up finally.
Cisco should be banned from fielding 5G technology for security reasons - they can spy on cows and their communications
Because your parents and society told you to. Would you drink cats' milk? Would you put your neighbour's (human) breastmilk on your cereal? If you wouldn't, why do you drink cows' milk?
Do you know that most male calves are killed within a few days of birth, because obviously they are of no use to the dairy industry? Do you think the mothers of those calves don't care? How would any mammals continue to exist if mothers (and often fathers) didn't care about their babies? When I say 'care', I mean 'if I lose my baby I will feel utter grief', and therefore mammal parents care for their babies.
A couple of well placed access points on the farm and this whole thing could be done with wifi. No need for big monthly bills from the telco for connecting up a couple of hundred head of cattle. Hell, RFID will tell you which cow just came through the door. Dairy cows don't travel far. they need to return to the milker each morning and evening. That means they are within walking distance of the barn so that drastically reduces the area that you need to cover down to less than 100 acres, most likely 20 or 30 will do. Moreover, the cattle are likely to be in open field, so that make communication even easier. This is just overkill for the need and over hyping 5G
There are a lot of cooky stories about 5G somehow being extra bad from a health perspective. Perhaps a side benefit of this could be partially testing those claims assuming autopsies are performed at the cow's end of life.
.... will get 5G before it comes to my neck of the woods in Upstate NY.
>> "We can connect every cow, we can connect every animal on this farm,"
Just saying....are we really that different than livestock these days? Have we ever been?