HP designing a nano sensor based "central nervous system for the earth", known as CeNSE

BBC today reports on a plan by HP to fix our ailing planet

"Hewlett Packard is up to two years away from starting to build a "central nervous system for the earth", known as CeNSE.  The man leading this ambitious project is Dr Stan Williams who runs HP's Information and Quantum Systems Laboratory.

"The motivation for this work is realising and understanding the planet is sick and the disease is us," he told BBC News.

"As information technology people, we are not going to be the ones who proscribe and administer the cure but we should be the people who provide the information required to do proper diagnosis and treatment."

And just as a doctor would use a barrage of tests to find out what ails a patient, so Dr Williams believes he and HP can do the same in finding out what is going wrong with our environment and offering solutions to problems before they turn into disasters.

Dr Williams suggested that, instead of wielding a stethoscope, HP would use trillions of sensors to monitor the health of the Earth and use the information to head off natural calamities such as large scale flooding or wildfires. The ubiquitous sensors would mimic human senses such as touch, smell, hearing, sight and taste.

"We are working with physics here so we can go beyond those normal human systems and we can sense them at an extraordinary level which is literally unprecedented," said Dr Williams, an HP senior fellow and a pioneer in nanotechnology. "

see full story here

These sensors will be so sensitive they can detect and measure anything and everything from viruses to bacteria, from the chemical composition of molecules to sounds and moisture levels.

....The only question I have is who decides what data is collected and who has access to the data? --Walter Dezko

ETA: 2010

 

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

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