Tag Archives: global positioning system

Eight Seconds of Terror

By Guest PostJanuary 17, 2014Environmentandrea donnellan, aperture radar mission, better models, blind thrust fault, california, crack, crust, crustal deformation, data analyses, downtown los angeles, earth, earthquake faults, earthquake in long beach, eight seconds, geodetic imaging techniques, geophysicist, global positioning system, golden guardian, gps, isro, large earthquakes, NASA, nature magazine, northridge earthquake, periodic shakeout, plate boundary observatory, reseda, rupture, san fernando valley, synthetic, terror, uavsar

A JPL Scientist Reflects on L.A.’s Last Big Quake

Twenty years ago this week, in the predawn darkness of Jan. 17, 1994, at five seconds before 4:31 a.m. PST, the ground ruptured violently on a blind thrust fault (a crack in Earth’s crust that does not reach the surface) about 11 miles (18 kilometers) beneath Reseda, in California’s San Fernando Valley about 20 miles (31 kilometers) northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The resulting magnitude 6.7 earthquake, known as the Northridge earthquake, became the first large quake to strike directly under an urban area in the United States since the 1933 magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Long Beach, Calif. (more…)

Flying Test Bed: New Aerial Platform Supports Development of Lightweight Sensors for UAVs

By Guest PostJanuary 22, 2013Scienceaerial test bed, airborne, airborne payloads, airborne sensors, airborne testing capability, autonomous flight, avoid detection, cell phone network, communications devices, cost effective way, electronic scanning, er aircraft, gauss, gauss uav, georgia tech, global positioning system, gps, griffon aerospace, griffon outlaw, ground mapping radar, gtri, high precision, lidar, light detection, michael brinkmann, mike heiges, multi channel, ranging, research institute, sensors, smaller aircraft, Technology, uav, unmanned aerial vehicle, unmanned sensor system, warren lee, x band

A research team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is developing an airborne testing capability for sensors, communications devices and other airborne payloads. This aerial test bed, called the GTRI Airborne Unmanned Sensor System (GAUSS), is based on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) made by Griffon Aerospace and modified by GTRI.

“Developing new sensor technologies that can be effectively employed from the air is a priority today given the rapidly increasing use of unmanned aircraft,” said Michael Brinkmann, a GTRI principal research engineer who is leading the work. “Given suitable technology, small UAVs can perform complex, low-altitude missions effectively and at lower cost. The GAUSS system gives GTRI and its customers the ability to develop and test new airborne payloads in a rapid, cost effective way.” (more…)

New Media Driving Occupy Movement, Prof Says

By Guest PostJanuary 28, 2012Media, Politicsalternative media, civil rights movement, economic change, global positioning system, gps, internet access, leadership structure, leah a lievrouw, mainstream media, map, media and technology, mobile devices, new technology, occupy la, occupy movement, pandoras box, personal media, political fray, political freedom, social, social mobilization, technological factor, tweeting, video cameras

Lacking structured leadership, a single spokesperson and even a clear message, the Occupy movement has grown through the use of personal media and new technologies, sustained by participants’ own network of contacts and willingness to dive into the political fray, says a UCLA information studies professor who studies the different ways media and technology shape society and culture.

Throughout the life of the Occupy movement, dynamic social and technological factors have helped shape the character and effect of demonstrations and fueled the coverage the movement has received in the mainstream press. And Professor Leah A. Lievrouw sees the day-to-day use of mobile devices as a defining element of Occupy’s activism that has helped organizers gain momentum and support as well as ignite social, cultural and economic change. (more…)

Some Dating Websites Do Not Remove GPS Data From Photos, CU-Boulder Students Find

By Guest PostJanuary 17, 2012Culture, Technologyage of facebook, canadian company, catholicsingles, chips, dating websites, global positioning system, gps, gps coordinates, information, interactions, kai larsen, location data, match, metadata, pictures, plentyoffish, privacy, relationship, research project, successfulmatch, university of colorado boulder, users

While the majority of dating websites do a good job of managing the privacy of their users, a class research project at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business found that 21 of 90 dating websites the class examined did not properly remove location data from pictures uploaded by their users.

As a result of people taking more photographs with cameras and cell phones containing Global Positioning System chips, some dating website profile pictures contain GPS coordinates showing where a picture was taken, said Associate Professor Kai Larsen, who taught the class on Privacy in the Age of Facebook. When such information is not removed by the dating website, commonly available tools can be used to detect the location of a person’s residence or other locations frequented by the user. (more…)

Some Earthquakes Expected Along Rio Grande Rift in Colorado And New Mexico, New Study Says

By Guest PostJanuary 15, 2012Environmentactive, anne sheehan, anthony lowry, colorado plateau, earth, earthquake hazards, earthquakes, fault bounded basins, fort collins, frederick blume, garden city, geologically alive, geologists, global positioning system, gps, magnitude, mark murray, Mexico, molten rock, nanostrain, new mexico tech, rates of deformation, rio grande rift, rise of magma, spreading motion, steven nerem, surface coloradom rocky mountains, unavco, university of colorado boulder, university of new mexico, western great plains

The Rio Grande Rift, a thinning and stretching of Earth’s surface that extends from Colorado’s central Rocky Mountains to Mexico, is not dead but geologically alive and active, according to a new study involving scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

“We don’t expect to see a lot of earthquakes, or big ones, but we will have some earthquakes,” said CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Anne Sheehan, also a fellow at CIRES. The study also involved collaborators from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech, Utah State University and the Boulder-headquartered UNAVCO. The Rio Grande Rift follows the path of the Rio Grande River from central Colorado roughly to El Paso before turning southeast toward the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)

NASA Research Confirms it’s a Small World, After All

By Guest PostAugust 17, 2011Scienceatmosphere, baseline interferometry, champs sur marne, changes in earth size, charles darwin, delft university of technology, doppler orbitography and radiopositioning integrated by satellite, earth expansion contraction theory, earth is a small world, earth lithosphere, earth orbit, earth radius, france, french satellite system, geophysical research letters, global climate change, global positioning system, grace, gravity recovery and climate experiment, ground navigation, high precision space geodesy, international terrestrial reference frame, land, large scale climate events like el nino and la nina, models of ocean bottom pressure, mother nature, NASA, ocean, solid earth, the netherlands, tracking spacecraft, walt disney, xiaoping wu

A NASA-led research team has confirmed what Walt Disney told us all along: Earth really is a small world, after all.

Since Charles Darwin’s time, scientists have speculated that the solid Earth might be expanding or contracting. That was the prevailing belief, until scientists developed the theory of plate tectonics, which explained the large-scale motions of Earth’s lithosphere, or outermost shell. Even with the acceptance of plate tectonics half a century ago, some Earth and space scientists have continued to speculate on Earth’s possible expansion or contraction on various scientific grounds.

Now a new NASA study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, has essentially laid those speculations to rest. Using a cadre of space measurement tools and a new data calculation technique, the team detected no statistically significant expansion of the solid Earth. (more…)

Mastering Disaster: Students Create Software to Save Lives

By Guest PostJuly 7, 2011Technologybosnia and herzegovina, brazil, chulalongkorn university, claire bonilla, czech republic, dam collapse, disaster victims, echo project, edward g happ, European Union, Facebook, flood, floodsim project, floodwaters, geographical information assistant, global positioning system, igor peric, imagine cup, imagine cup 2011, international red cross and red crescent societies, jon perera, kriangkrai pipatvilaikul, largest student technology competition, maps, microsoft sponsored event, nethope, new york city, northern thailand, pdas, personal digital assistants, smartphone application, social networks, software projects, spread of cholera, spu, team gina, terra, thailand team newkrean, tsunami, world, zbynek poulicek

*At the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals, dozens of student teams showcase software projects that in some cases are already improving disaster relief efforts.*

REDMOND, Wash. – July 7, 2011 – When floodwaters swept across northern Thailand last fall, Kriangkrai Pipatvilaikul knew he had to help. So he boarded a bus with fellow students from Chulalongkorn University and went to a devastated village he had seen on TV.

The students joined scores of volunteers arriving at the same village with food, water and medical supplies. As they helped with the relief effort, the group heard about a harder hit area, one that hadn’t made the news, and they decided to push on. What they found shocked them. As they paddled through the submerged town, desperate villagers surrounded their boat and tried to grab whatever food they could. The students realized no other volunteers had been there despite the short distance from the previous site. (more…)

GPS Stations Can Detect Clandestine Nuclear Tests

By Guest PostJune 15, 2011Environment, Scienceair molecules, airborne radioactive gas, bubble of disturbed particles, chemical sensors, comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty organization, computer algorithms, ctbto, dorota grejner brzezinska, earth, eastern asia, evidence of a nuclear explosion, fluctuation in atmospheric electron density, gangwon province, geodetic science, global positioning system, gps, hamyong province, igs, illegal nuclear explosions, inje county, international gnss service, ionosphere, ionospheric electron density, jihye park, luis gaya pique, north korea, north korean nuclear test in 2009, ohio state university, punggye, ralph von frese, seismic detectors, shockwave, south korea, south korean gps network, underground nuclear tests, upper atmosphere, yu morton

VIENNNA, Austria – At the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) meeting, American researchers are unveiling a new tool for detecting illegal nuclear explosions: the Earth’s global positioning system (GPS).

Even underground nuclear tests leave their mark on the part of the upper atmosphere known as the ionosphere, the researchers discovered, when they examined GPS data recorded the same day as a North Korean nuclear test in 2009. Within minutes on that day, GPS stations in nearby countries registered a change in ionospheric electron density, as a bubble of disturbed particles spread out from the test site and across the planet. (more…)