Kurt's Weblog

iPhone 3GS - first images

Last night, I picked up an iPhone 3GS! Pretty exciting. I gave the camera a try this morning and it did okay with the gray weather that we are having in NH. The image sync with iPhoto is super fast - my old digital camera takes a minute or two as apposed to about 2 seconds for the iPhone. Here is a small piece of the image:

I shrank the image down so you can see the whole thing:

It's worth a second to take a look at the EXIF headers:

% fink install jhead
% jhead IMG_0006.JPG
File name    : /Users/schwehr/Desktop/IMG_0006.JPG
File size    : 1265684 bytes
File date    : 2009:07:03 09:36:45
Camera make  : Apple
Camera model : iPhone
Date/Time    : 2009:07:03 07:10:49
Resolution   : 2048 x 1536
Focal length :  3.8mm
Exposure time: 0.017 s  (1/60)
Aperture     : f/2.8
ISO equiv.   : 78
GPS Latitude : N 43d [snip]
GPS Longitude: W 70d [snip]
Comment      : {
Comment      :     AEAverage = 193;
Comment      :     AELimitsReached = 0;
Comment      :     AEStable = 1;
Comment      :     AFStable = 1;
Comment      :     AFStatus = 4;
Comment      :     AGC = 287;
Comment      :     AWBBGain = 194;
Comment      :     AWBGGain = 64;
Comment      :     AWBRGain = 137;
Comment      :     AWBStable = 1;
Comment      :

If you say yes, the camera geocodes the images quite nicely. The camera model isn't very specific.

Firefox geolocation confusion - now working

The "Give it a try!" link on the firefox geolocation page works, but following their code is difficult.

This demo (http://people.mozilla.com/~dolske/tmp/geoloc.html) has easy to follow code, but doesn't work.

Where can I find a simple example that works? Introducing Geode says that I can do:

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(pos) {
  alert( pos.latitude + ", " + pos.longitude );
})

But that doesn't seem to do it. I get the share location request beneath the navigation bar, but then I get null back for the position... a little digging, and I found that the return structure has changed since the initial design. Here is a super simple working example. Instead of pos.longitude, it uses pos.coords.longitude.

geolocation-alert.html

 dir="ltr" xml:lang="en-US" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US">
 type="text/javascript">
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(pos) {
  alert( pos.coords.latitude + ", " + pos.coords.longitude );
})

Firefox could use an update to their page to point to this working demo: geoloc-new.html

FireFox 3.5 location aware

Note: If you have Firefox 3.5, this is built in to the browser by default: Firefox Geolocation. Try this URL, which doesn't work for me: Local food - http://azarask.in/local/. Now the real question is: How do I tell these services where wifi access points are located if it doesn't already know? I'd like to add access points that I am frequently around that aren't in the Google Location Services.

Google and Mozilla Team Up to Tell Firefox Where You Are [webmonkey]

Google and Mozilla have partnered to geo-enable the next wave of web
applications in Firefox, the companies announced Thursday. The latest
version of Firefox - 3.5 ... will use Google's Location Service as its
default location provider. ...

Once the user provides a web app with permission to do so (the
geolocation abilities are opt-in, as they should be) the application
can use the browser to determine the user's location. This means
developers can provide more accurate local search results and other
geo-aware functionality ...

...Mozilla launched the Geode project, a location
awareness add-on for Firefox, Yahoo brought us Fire Eagle and the
Geocoder API, Google gave us Latitude and Microsoft is developing
Vine. ...

And Inferring context from the environment [Magic Ink]

Geographical location. Similarly, the most interesting spatial
landmark is usually "here." Unfortunately, this currently can be
harder to determine automatically, but the payoff is enormous.* Obviously, a
software roadmap needs to know the user's location, but so does the
bus schedule, as well as business listings, transportation planners,
travel guides, and much other information software.

* I believe that location is such vital context, Powerbooks should
come with GPS receivers pre-installed, with an easy software
API. Developers would then write software to take advantage of it, and
other computer makers would follow suit. Someday, a computer without
GPS might seem as silly as a computer without a clock.

Just a reminder, GPS is first and formost a clock. No time, no GPS position. One day soon, I hope to install the latest version of linux or Mac OSX and discover that it is preconfigured to be a stratum 1 NTP timeserver (and PTP) using the built in GPS chip with a fallback to the a mobile phone service (e.g. CDMA) time source. As a reminder, this is how you check how ntp is doing:

% ntpq -p -n
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
-132.177.137.2   209.123.234.24   3 u  414 1024  377    4.680    4.171   0.221
-72.18.205.156   128.138.140.44   2 u  348 1024  377   79.530   -6.882   0.450
+69.10.36.5      64.90.182.55     2 u  479 1024  377   36.526   -3.959   0.540
-38.117.195.101  209.51.161.238   2 u  471 1024  377   12.920    7.163   0.164
*207.171.30.106  .PPS.            1 u  514 1024  377   79.463    3.569   2.720
+72.18.205.157   128.138.140.44   2 u 1611  68m  377   79.433   -6.352   1.356
 66.70.29.130    66.250.45.2      3 u  46h  68m    0   18.614   -3.436   0.000
-65.255.217.202  69.36.241.112    3 u 1654  68m  377   79.327   10.225   3.076
 127.127.1.0     .LOCL.          13 l   62   64  377    0.000    0.000   0.001

Reson multibeam movies

Reson has put some of movies from their systems up on YouTube:

MATE ROV Competition

NOAA DYI ROV (aka mini-submarine in a bucket) [sea-fever]. Thanks to Art, I have the guide book for this sitting on my shelf.

Louisville Locks

The USCG and ACOE have a project in Louisville at the McAlpine Locks. I believe there is an Acoustic Doppler Currant Profiler - ADCP at the split coming into the locks.

Here is a vessel approaching the area coming through the several leading bridges:

A vessel that has made the approach and is entering the channel to the lock:

The ACOE has a airphoto of the lock in their McAlphone Locks and Dam fact sheet

Louisville

How and why do you configure your AIS?

The initial comments that I got an LiveJournal are great. To step up the conversation some more, I started a thread over on gCaptain. If you want more, on this, take a look at the paper by Brian Calder and myself: Traffic Analysis for the Calibration of Risk Assessment Methods, US Hydro 2009

cCaptain thread: How do you configure your AIS and why?:

I'm a researcher at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping/NOAA Joint Hydrographic Center in New Hampshire (research blog: http://schwehr.org/blog). I've been working with AIS for a couple of years now... ways to get information to mariners and ways to understand how mariners move about. After looking at the settings people put into their devices and configuring a bunch of units myself, I've seen that there are a lot of different styles for what is done. It would be a huge help to know what your strategy is for setting the vessel type, draught, length, width, name, call sign, ship and cargo type, ETA, and destination fields. Many vessels set it once and leave it, while others change one or more of these all the time. I've looked at a few books that are used for teaching and haven't seen any guidance on best practices and the AIS standards documents don't say much. Are you or someone above you setting some quidelines for what you do?

I got some great initial discussion:

http://goatbar.livejournal.com/2139.html

A few of the things I see:

Parameters set at AIS install time
Parameters (sometimes partialy) changed when the vessel is sold
There are ships that change when the pilot gets on board and then go right back after the pilot leaves
Ships that look like they change with the watch stander changes
Changes when a vessel enters of leaves port
When there are power glitches (e.g. Nauticast devices that reset to factory defaults)
Tugs that become Tows and some that change their length to match what they are towing.
Tows that never change length or status even when not towing
Vessels where the length randomly changes (turned out to be a lighting strike on the ship)
etc...

Understanding why you do what you do with your AIS device would be hugely helpful for those trying to use AIS to help understand what we see. We are looking at AIS to try to help direct where (in the US - NOAA) hydrographic offices will focus surveys and how to manage waterways better.

Here is an example of an interesting draught history for a vessel, while others are static (frequently with a draught of 0):

[picture of vessel draught that I posted a few days ago]

It would be great if we could start working towards best practices for the community!

New antenna location at nhjel

Andy M. just got a chance to move the AIS J-Pole antenna at Jackson Estuarine Lab (JEL) from inside to top floor room to outside. The improvement in reception is impressive. The old site was too close to computers, cables, and other radio gear. Hopefully I'll get a chance soon to plot the difference in reception. The tough part about AIS is that most of the things that you are hearing (at least in NH) are moving.

Phil Zimbardo TED talk

Seeing this guy speak in person is quite the experience!

and 2008: