FutureWorldz

Seeing the World Using Google “Goggles”

Soon, you may be able to find information about almost any physical object with the click of a smartphone. Imagine working on augmented reality applications that change that way we use our intelligence; that augment our intelligence. Careers in this area include human computer interaction, computer science, computer vision and biomemetics.

This vision, once the stuff of science fiction, took a significant step forward this month when Google unveiled a smartphone application called Goggles. It allows users to search the Web, not by typing or by speaking keywords, but by snapping an image with a cellphone and feeding it into Google’s search engine.

How tall is that mountain on the horizon? Snap and get the answer. Who is the artist behind this painting? Snap and find out. What about that stadium in front of you? Snap and see a schedule of future games there.

Goggles, in essence, offers the promise to bridge the gap between the physical world and the Web.

Goggles is not the first application to try to create a link between the physical and virtual worlds via cellphones. A variety of so-called augmented-reality applications like World Surfer and Wikitude allow you to point your cellphone or its camera and find information about landmarks, restaurants and shops in front of you. Yet those applications typically rely on location data, matching information from maps with a cellphone’s GPS and compass data. Another class of applications reads bar codes to link objects or businesses with online information about them.

Goggles also uses location information to help identify objects, but its ability to recognize millions of images opens up new possibilities. “This is a big step forward in terms of making it work in all these different kinds of situations,” said Jason Hong, a professor at the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

When you snap a picture with Goggles, Google spends a few seconds analyzing the image, then sends it up to its vast “cloud” of computers and tries to match it against an index of more than a billion images. Google’s data centers distribute the image-matching problem among hundreds or even thousands of computers to return an answer quickly.

It’s not hard to imagine a slew of commercial applications for this technology. You could compare prices of a product online, learn how to operate that old water heater whose manual you have lost or find out about the environmental record of a certain brand of tuna. But Goggles and similar products could also tell the history of a building, help travelers get around in a foreign country or even help blind people navigate their surroundings.

It is also easy to think of scarier possibilities down the line. Google’s goal to recognize every image, of course, includes identifying people. Computer scientists say that it is much harder to identify faces than objects, but with the technology and computing power improving rapidly, improved facial recognition may not be far off.

Mr. Gundotra says that Google already has some facial-recognition capabilities, but that it has decided to turn them off in Goggles until privacy issues can be resolved. “We want to move with great discretion and thoughtfulness,” he said.

Find the original article posted on the NY Times

No Slowdown of Global Warming, Agency Says

COPENHAGEN — Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending, according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday.

The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record, dating back 150 years, according to a provisional summary of climate conditions near the end of 2009, the organization said

The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the international weather agency, speaking at a news conference at the climate talks in Copenhagen.

The international assessment largely meshes with an interim analysis by the National Climatic Data Center and NASA in the United States, both of which independently estimate global and regional temperature and other weather trends.

Mr. Jarraud also said that 2009, with some uncertainty because several weeks remain, appears to be the fifth warmest year on record.

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What is Environmental Education?

Classroom Earth, a program of The National Environmental Education Foundation, defines environmental education as the process, activities and experiences—across disciplines—that lead students to have a greater understanding of how the earth’s resources and natural systems work and interact with each other and with human-made systems.

As awareness about environmental issues evolves and become more sophisticated, students move towards environmental literacy. Ultimately, environmental education, as it develops environmental literacy, helps foster an understanding of how everyday decisions, lifestyle choices, and activities impact the finite resources of this planet.

Environmental Education in the Classroom and Beyond

Environmental education can be taught in formal settings (schools or other traditional academic institutions) or in non-formal experiences. In addition, environmental education can and should be an integral part of every discipline. Classroom Earth can help you incorporate environmental learning into whatever subject area you teach, visit our Resource Library.

Environmental Education Guidelines

Sifting through the many environmental education resources available can be daunting. Determining the quality of materials can be even more overwhelming.

The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) has developed Guidelines for Excellence that recommend that all materials and activities have:

• Fair and accurate information describing environmental problems, issues, and conditions, and in reflecting the diversity of perspectives on them;
• Material about the natural and built environments, ecological concepts, and attitudes and values are presented in sufficient depth;
• An emphasis on skill building including: creative and critical thinking;
• An orientation towards civic responsibility;
• Instructional techniques that create an effective learning environment including: learner-centered instruction, multiple intelligences, and relevant topics; and
• Well designed and easy to use materials.

(Taken from Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence, published in 1998 by the North American Association for Environmental Education. Click Here for more information.)

by CLASSROOM EARTH