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Saturday, February 3. 2007

NYTimes on Gray Search

Remote Sensing

The list of tech companies turning the expertise and equipment to the search for lost Microsofter James Gray lenthened this week. It now includes folks and resources from Google, Amazon, NASA, many universities, DigitalGlobe and a aerial sensor equipped plane.


"This is the largest strictly civilian, privately sponsored search effort I have ever seen," said Capt. David Swatland, deputy commander of the Coast Guard sector in San Francisco, who has spent most of his 23-year career in search and rescue.

Amazon posted the imagery from DigitalGlobe to its Mechanical Turk site so that many eyes could look for traces of Gary's boat, the Tenacious. (I mentioned that recently for its use in feature extraction.) Microsoft is also tapping into satellites (IKONOS?) and using radar imagery along with its Oceanview software (acquired from Vexcel) which apparently can find vessels in radar imagery.

It's hard to watch all these resources pouring out for Mr. Gray and recently for Mr. Kim (from C|NET, discussed here) knowing that many other lost folks don't receive such efforts. That said, it's certainly possible that these new pairings of technologists may well discover new ways of tracking the lost. I wonder for example if this is the first use of Mechanical Turk for search and rescue?

- New York Times

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Microsoft, Remote Sensing, Sensors at 05:55 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark and Share

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As a competitive sailor and sometimes ocean racer, I watch these events unfold with mixed feelings. Like everyone else, I hope for the best possible outcome. However, I can't help thinking that with the search area being fairly small (between San Francisco and the Farallon Islands), and all the resources and technology employed, the vessel should have been found by now if it is still afloat.
#1 Atanas Entchev (Link) on 2007-02-03 09:03 (Reply)
It's actually a really interesting idea. Kinda like a Search'n'Rescue version of SETI@Home.
Who knows... it might actually evolve into a website dedicated to this kinda thing.
#2 Morten on 2007-02-03 12:57 (Reply)
Kinda like SETI, but not exactly. SETI makes use of the CPU power of the users' idling computers. Mechanical Turk demands the users' eyeballs and active minds.
#3 Atanas Entchev (Link) on 2007-02-03 13:11 (Reply)
Follow-up: This past Saturday I volunteered some of my time to the Mechanical Turk team effort. Today I received an email from the team explaining that some of the sample images I had reviewed were slightly enlarged and therefore would I refresh my browser and do it over again?

It is now day nine since Jim Gray has been reported missing. The Coast Guard called off the search on day five. The Coast Guard has been doing search and rescue at sea for a long time, and they know what they're doing. Looking over images where Jim's boat MIGHT HAVE BEEN nine days ago is fruitless, in my opinion. At least for the purpose of rescuing Jim Gray.
#4 Atanas Entchev (Link) on 2007-02-05 20:03 (Reply)

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