Scott Donovan's List: Human interface

Updated March 09, 2010
Pioneering U.S. Robot Lost at Sea
AP
A pioneering deep-sea robot made by Massachusetts researchers has been lost off the coast of Chile.

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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

An underwater robot from the Woods Hole named ABE -- the The Autonomous Benthic Explorer -- was lost off the coast of Chile.

FALMOUTH, Massachusetts -- A pioneering deep-sea robot made by Massachusetts researchers has been lost off the coast of Chile.

Researchers abruptly lost contact with the $1.1 million robot Friday after it reached the Pacific Ocean floor, nearly 2 miles down.

Scientists believe a glass sphere that helped keep the robot buoyant may have imploded under the water pressure, destroying onboard communications. It was the robot's 222nd research dive.

The robot was known as ABE. It was made at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was launched in 1995.

ABE had greater range and technical abilities than human-occupied submersibles or vehicles connected by cables to surface ships. It was the first autonomous robot to make detailed maps of mid-ocean ridges and locate hydrothermal vents, where hot liquid spews from the ocean floor.



Oceanographers are developing a new type of undersea robot swarm, to measure the smallest systems in the ocean. From tadpoles to lobsters to simple tube designs, robots of all shapes make possible underwater exploration in many harsh environments. Here are a few of our favorite designs, both the practical and the outrageous.

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Could OLPC’s mesh net technology work in U.S. rural areas—to help spread the e-books around?

By David Rothman

In the 1930s, via the Rural Electrification Administration, electricity went into remote areas of Appalachia and other neglected regions of the United States. Is it time to use OLPC repeater technology to do the same for broadband? What are the technical and regulatory barriers at this point? Could the telecoms be kept at bay—or maybe even bought off in return for a piece of the action?

OK, any mavens on WiFi repeaters who’d care to educate us? Could it be that OLPC-refined WiFi technology, or maybe a WiMax variant, will be almost as significant as $100-$200 laptops?

The e-book angle: Even with caching, forget about networked e-books in truly widespread use if broadband isn’t ubiquitous. Broadband also makes it easier to browse libraries or shop for e-books online. Simply put, always-on broadband is a friend, not an enemy, of e-books even though plain text itself is darn miserly with bandwidth. Hello, John Edwards and other pols who say they’re poverty fighters? If you want a comprehensive, coherent broadband policy that promotes business and education, maybe it’s time to take a good look at what OLPC is up to with the repeaters, not just the laptops. Hey, farms it out to your advisors if you hate the grubby details.

Related: One Cheap Solar 802.11s Mesh Repeater Per Child, in OLPC News. Also see Wikipedia item.