Wednesday, October 21. 2009

Remote Sensing on a Shoe String Budget: The Icarus Project and $150

I spoke to Oliver Yeh, one part of the duo of MIT students that created Project Icarus. He along with fellow student Justin Lee sent a small digital camera into near space to get a bird’s eye view of eastern Massachusetts. Now, people have been launching objects skyward to photograph the earth for a long time. But, this only cost Yeh and Lee less than $150.

How did they do it? With a $30 digital camera they bought used on Amazon, a latex balloon from an online supplier (somewhat thicker than a party balloon), a Styrofoam cooler, some insulation, a small parachute, a prepaid cell phone with extended battery and antenna, and about 65 cubic feet of helium.

In order to track the balloon, the team downloaded an application that runs on the cell phone to capture the GPS coordinates and transmit the location data. The phone could not send information once above 3000 feet so it also stored the track of the balloon’s flight. Software was also downloaded to the camera with instructions to snap a photo every five seconds.

The result is a sequence of photographs of the balloons journey. The most amazing are those taken at the balloons apex of near 93,000 feet.

Oliver said they had a good idea how long it would last and the approximate altitude the balloon would reach. The entire flight took about two hours and he eventually retrieved the balloon when it landed in a small field.

You can see the photos and read more details about this amazing project at the space.1337arts website. What's next? Perhaps a transatlantic flight where Oliver says the challenge will be to try and maintain a more constant altitude during the journey.

Virtual Worlds Offer #GEOINT a Different Geographic Perspective

Though the media hype has died down from virtual world’s like Second Life, the interest and research for applications in the defense and intelligence community have exploded. Tami Griffith, Science and Technology Manager for the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command has launched a contest called the Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge. The objective is to encourage the development of training and analysis solutions on a virtual world platform. For the Army, virtual worlds present very low cost simulation tools. Griffith said that, “the premise is that we have not begun to explore all of the possibilities of using virtual worlds.” A Q&A with Griffith appears on the Second Life blog and you can view more on YouTube (See below).

Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, a military and intelligence consultant to such organizations as NGA, NRO, the Los Angeles Police Department, Ball Aerospace, and many others, warned that the blending of events in the real world and virtual reality is the next generation of virtual worlds. The next generation gets a little scary where events in the virtual world lead to “real world” deaths. Virtual Troops may engage in combat situations in cyberspace but the results may be real world destruction. “The technology now is very sophisticated,” said Baxter.

Update: Google Earth Portable - New Option for State and Local Government

In speaking with Dylan Lorimer, the project manager for Google Earth Enterprise, he said that the goal for the coming year is to support state and local governments. In particular, a new application called Google Earth Portable, developed by Google and looks to put a Google Earth globe in hands of those that need lots of data but who are not confined to an office environment. GE Portable does not require network connectivity and only a portion of an organization's data need be put on something as small as a thumb drive. Lorimer offered that the full Google Earth server serves tiles locally to the GE Enterprise client or via Google Maps and Google Earth APIs. [This update corrects an earlier version which had cited NT Concepts as the developer of GE Portable.]

Google's Michael Jones on Google Map's Parcel Layer

I had a short discussion with Michael Jones, Google's chief technology advocate, about the incorporation of the parcel layer in Google Maps. Jones said it was truly nothing more than improving Google's ability to provide more accurate geocoding. When I discussed the notion that it was integrated so as to increase potential ad revenue from the real estate industry, he dismissed that notion. He conveyed that real estate was a narrow audience in terms of specific searches for commercial or residential information and that was not the intent.

He also mentioned that he believed at some point the supplier of the parcel information would eventually come forward which led me to believe that it was not Google that was suppressing the information about the source.

Why is it important to know the source? I think it's simply a matter of understanding the intent that either party had by incorporating a data layer that seemed atypical for Google to do. Any more atypical than subsea terrain data? Any more atypical than displaying 3D buildings and their facades? Any more atypical than topographic data? All these data types seemed at one time the purview for applications by the GIS and CAD community but now are seen and used by millions of consumers on an atypical platform; i.e. not a GIS system, and are now being used by developers using the Google Maps API. With every new data type that Google introduces into Maps and Earth more questions arise about "what's next?" Such as the new real estate listings layer just announced today. According to Mr. Jones, "It is interesting to use the price ranges (more than $20m, say, for expensive houses, or under $20k for inexpensive ones) to create a browseable information surface of the country's housing demographics."

NGA Director Discusses New Agency Charter

Director Vice Admiral Robert Murrett delivered an address at the GEOINT symposium and discussed the new charter of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) which was signed in July 2009 by the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. The charter establishes a dual role for the NGA as the geospatial intelligence functional manager for the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. Elements of the charter that have been completely incorporated to date include the Central Imagery Office, the Defense Dissemination Program Office, the National Photographic Interpretation Center and the Defense Mapping Agency. One element that has been a point of controversy that is not as yet incorporated into the charter is the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), responsible for the nation's spy satellites, whose existence is being questioned and whose charter is under review. Some of the controversy involves the plan for next generation of electro-optical satellites to support the intelligence community and what the role of the NRO should be, if any, according to an article in the Online Defense and Acquisition Journal.

Director of National Intelligence Addresses #GEOINT Audience - Why?

The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Dennis Blair, addressed the GEOINT Symposium audience this morning in a keynote address. Blair is the person responsible for the coordination of intelligence information between the various intelligence agencies in the U.S. government. The purpose of his presentation was to brief the audience on the four goals of the DNI:

1. To enable wise national security policies and give a clear picture of the facts on the ground from around the world.
2. Support effective national security action once the administration makes a decision to deploy troops or other teams (NGO’s, etc.) and to provide these teams with information to be effective in the field.
3. Provide technological innovation.
4. Work as a single integrated team – sharing information and skills. Basically, the DNI serves as a coordinator to balance intelligence for military requirements with cost and risk.

These are wonderful goals and perhaps need to be articulated to some. However, I find this type of presentation to be of little value as a whole. It is great PR but serves little to advance the dialog among the attendees. I think the charter of the DNI is well defined but most of his job is done in the "dark" anyway. To address a public forum seems counter to his role as an intelligence officer and, frankly, isn’t necessary.  This information can be easily conveyed through other sources and seems somewhat a waste of the director’s time (and taxpayer money) to try and articulate his functional role. Finally, he just isn't going to divulge information to this audience that is "news."

I can only imagine his job is difficult enough in trying to break down barriers of intelligence gathering among entrenched agency culture without having to determine what is or isn't appropriate in a public forum.