Alle schepen live volgen
Google zal binnenkort informatie over alle schepen op zee, inclusief hun naam en actuele locatie, openbaar maken. Saillant detail daarbij is dat Google dit blijkbaar beter kan dan het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie:
Google paid several million dollars for the satellite technology to pinpoint ships' locations. "These things cost three million dollars for the whole program," Michael Jones, "Chief Technology Advocate" at Google Ventures, said at the annual Joint Warfighting Conference held by the US Naval Institute and the electronics industry group AFCEA. Google has talked to representatives of 50 navies worldwide about their new technology and has discovered it tracks ships better than their own commanders can. "I watch them and they can't see themselves," Jone said. "It angers me as a citizen that I can do this and the entire DoD can't."De zeebodem volledig in kaart
Een ander project met een wat langere adem is het volledig, met een accuraatheid van een paar centimeter, in kaart brengen van de zeebodem. Opmerkelijk hierbij is opnieuw dat de Amerikaanse defensie zelf niet in staat is om dit te realiseren:
Google has a five-year project to map the entire ocean floor using an unmanned seagoing sensor, whose accuracy -- within "a few centimers" might discover the resting places of top-secret spy satellites and other sunken wreckage national security authorities had thought was hidden forever, potentially triggering a "treasure hunt" by foreign powers, Jones warned. "ONR [Office of Naval Research] had done research on this but they had run out of funding," Jones said. So Google tracked down 17 people who had worked on the project before their contracts were cancelled, hired them, and has restarted the initiative itself. "The Navy's tested it, it works great; [but] they got too poor. They just couldn't do it," said Jones, himself the proud son of a Navy sailor. "That's just not right."Plaatje: Google's Doodle van Braclo