Steve Liang, assistant professor at the University of Calgary, presented these slides as part of the Cybera Summit 2010 session, Environmental Infrastructure: The Tools and Technologies Behind Water and Resource Management.

1. Sensors
Crowd
and
Dr. Steve Liang
University of Calgary

2. !"#$%&$

3. Bell’s Law of Computing Classes
A new computing class every 10 years
log (people per computer)
Time (Polastre, 2004)
– Dr. Steve Liang – http://sensorweb.geomatics.ucalgary.ca –

4. Bell’s Law of Computing Classes
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5. The Macroscope Vision
• The unprecedented amount of sensors will
allow us to
• observe the world at very high spatial
resolution
• perform these observations continuously
• collect them in digital form
• They will all be connected to the Internet

6. Vineyard Computing
Burrell, J., Brooke, T. & Beckwith, R. Vineyard computing: sensor networks in
agricultural production. Pervasive Computing, IEEE 3, 38-45 (2004). !

7. Links between sensors are
missing....
• Sensor/Data are scientists’
precious...
• They hide their precious...
• They don’t share their
precious...
• But...their precious might be
able to help others to save
the world....
• And...even if they want to
share and collaborate, there
is no easy way...
– Dr. Steve Liang – http://sensorweb.geomatics.ucalgary.ca –

8. Unleash the Power of Sensors
Innovation in Assembly
A Web of Sensors
– Dr. Steve Liang – http://sensorweb.geomatics.ucalgary.ca –

9. Sensor Web Vision
Query the physical world from anywhere at
anytime….

10. :&%38

11. www.OpenStreetMap.org

12. 2009-10-16
One of the most complete
and most updated map
databases in the world!!

13. Quake Catcher Network
qcn.stanford.edu

14. classic.globe.gov

15. viz.globe.gov

16. Crowd may not the
solution for every
problems...

17. But for some
problems, crowd might
be the best solution.

19. New Zealand Earthquake
on Sep 3rd 2010

20. Crowd Characteristics
• Time Critical
• Rich Context
• Unlimited Growth Sensor Web Head
• Pareto Distribution Sensor Web Long Tail
• Long Tail

21. Crowd can do great
work, if we can provide
them...

22. 1. How to use low quality data
to generate quality results
original GPS traces clarified GPS traces routable map
Cao, L. & Krumm, J. From GPS traces to a routable road map. Proceedings of the 17th ACM SIGSPATIAL International
Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems 3-12 (2009)

23. 2. Search engine
• make it possible to find available data
3. Standards
• make it possible to access
4. Collaboration platform
• social networking
• able to upload/edit

24. Give the right tool to
the crowd...

25. – Dr. Steve Liang – http://sensorweb.geomatics.ucalgary.ca –

26. alpha

27. alpha
Search, Auto
Complete
and
Suggestion

28. Online Social Networks
friends
– Dr. Steve Liang – http://sensorweb.geomatics.ucalgary.ca –

29. Social Bookmarking
I"J"()*I,K*172#L)*!,K*)*M!NOFPOQ*OR5"#87#L*4%(S$%#%;7"$*5%*56"*!"#$%&*N"T)M*"#--*0#)*69/(H/34&#-#'%/1(*&,(I.17/$1(
J"HIK?(AB<B(;&7/)&*6#&*-(I.$+#1%5$(#&*)*@%(,)*#%,)*<<,UHGFUAE)*BVF-B*W2?*-.B.
– Dr. Steve Liang – http://sensorweb.geomatics.ucalgary.ca –

30. Recommendation cont.
Find people to find information
Find information to find people
(think eHarmony...)
– Dr. Steve Liang – http://sensorweb.geomatics.ucalgary.ca –

31. Ping as an example...

32. GeoCENS Vision
Sensors

33. Workshop
- September 23rd 2010
- Great speakers:
• NASA
• OGC
• Microsoft Research
- Banff Centre
Dr. Steve Liang
@geosensorweb