05.28.2006 15:00
Mars rovers: new software to search images for clouds and dust devils
In Mars robots
to get smart upgrade, the BBC's Jonathan Amos writes that new
algorithms in Spirit's and Opportunity's software will search
images for clouds and dust devils, and give priority in uploading
those images.
Currently, the rovers are allocated time to
look for clouds and dust devils, which may or may not appear - they
are naturally transient events. And getting humans to sift the
images is time consuming. ...
"If we could look for a much more extended time and select only those images with clouds then we could increase our understanding of how and when these phenomena form. Similarly with the dust devils [said JPL's Rebecca Castano]."
The Earth Observing-1 satellite has used such algorithms since
2003.
"If we could look for a much more extended time and select only those images with clouds then we could increase our understanding of how and when these phenomena form. Similarly with the dust devils [said JPL's Rebecca Castano]."
A classic example was an eruption on
Antarctica's Mt Erebus volcano in 2004. Typically, it could take
several weeks to learn such a remote volcano had gone into an
active phase; but as soon as EO-1 detected heat from the lava lake
at the mountain's summit, it reprogrammed its camera to take more
pictures.
The spacecraft also sent a rapid alert to volcanologists on the mission's science team.
So successful has EO-1's Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software been that it is now running the satellite's main science operations.
The
Exploring Mars page at the BBC is updated regularly, and it has
an RSS feed.The spacecraft also sent a rapid alert to volcanologists on the mission's science team.
So successful has EO-1's Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software been that it is now running the satellite's main science operations.
05.02.2006 06:45
North Carolina lottery ticket machine running Monta Vista Linux
At a Kangaroo convenience store in Raleigh
yesterday, the lottery ticket machine (the one which checks scratch
off tickets for winners) rebooted. When it started coming back up,
I saw dmesg echoing to the console with a Monta Vista Linux Tux logo. GTECH supplies the hardware at that
location, and, I believe, all four or five thousand scratch off
ticket validation locations for the lottery. The machine was
running a 2.14 kernel, 2.14.17, IIRC.