#is exactly how people end up down the alt right pipeline

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

I’m scared for the kids who might unknowingly buy the Harry Potter game or the books or the movies without knowing what’s going on. We need to ACTUALLY ban this franchise. Burn copies in stores. Smash your friend’s computer if you have to. I don’t know why we’re simply telling people to “read other books” and not going full scorched earth. There’s children out there who could be entrapped into this thing and not know until it’s too late…(It’s not censorship because it’s actually bad. Only minorities should be allowed to censor things because we know best.)

Nice try, buddy.

[anestheticx]

What Exactly is Trump Doing?

What Exactly is Donald Trump Doing? It's been months, and many are asking what in the world is Trump truly doing? Better yet, what, if anything, has he accomplished? Is America now magically "great?" Are the claims of job creation and a "better" economy true or simply fluffed up garbage? Is he fighting for the everyday person, or against them? Is he draining the swamp, or filling it? Does he believe in climate change, or is it a Chinese "hoax"? Some of Trump's advisers aren't even certain of what Trump actually means, thinks, or does - this much is obvious in their continuously undermined remarks by Trump himself. An adviser will publicly say one thing, and yet, Trump will say another, disagreeing with them entirely. For all we know, Trump makes decisions on a total, uneducated, emotionally charged whim during late night hours while he skims twitter, alone in his bedroom. Let's look at what Trump HAS done. Trump Has: 1.) A Record Low Approval Rating. Trump's approval rating is the lowest of any new president since Gallup began tracking approval ratings in 1953. New presidents have typically experienced a "honeymoon" period in approval ratings during their first few months, however, Donald Trump has not. His approval rating stands at about 37% consistently. Presidents have slumped low before. George W. Bush fell to 25%, Clinton fell to 37%, Obama fell to 38%, and Reagan fell to 35%. However, these presidents did not lose support so intensely so early in their presidency, and had higher approval ratings from both sides of the political spectrum during the beginning of their terms. If Trump's approval ratings are the highest they'll ever be now, and if they get any lower, he may be the most unpopular president of all time... 2.) Done a lot of Mar-a-Lago Golfing. Since taking office, Trump has spent nearly half of his weekends in Florida. This adds up to a total of 25 days, and the costs are mind numbing. These trips have costed tax-payers about $20 million in 100 days, while Obama's costs for personal travel were at about $97 million in eight years. The costs are historic, but why exactly is the president taking so much time off, so early on. Shouldn't he be working? 3.) Pushed Anti Environmental Legislation. From pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement ( which was a voluntary agreement to consciously cut back on environment destroying carbon emitters ), budget cuts to the EPA, dismissing EPA scientists, scrubbing the EPA's climate change website, expanding offshore drilling, denying climate science, and ordering a review of national monuments to the Dakota Access Pipeline approval - Donald Trump has denied, destroyed, and thrown to the side what we know about climate science completely. Obama's Methane Regulation law was something Trump attempted to ban as well, however, surprisingly the Senate voted not to repeal it. Donald Trump refuses to push towards modernized, cheaper, cleaner energy such as solar, wind and hydro powered technologies, and in doing so has put the U.S.A behind other major countries putting the health of their citizens and this planet before profit. As usual, Trump sees profit as more important than people. The scariest part may be that our water, land, air and general environment will suffer long after Trump, oil and coal are gone. The course he's set on is one that will harm millions if not billions of people if continued without review. With or without the support of Trump and the fossil fuel industry, many states have decided that they must transition rapidly away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Clean energy employs 6x more people than coal, and again coal and oil are finite anyway. 4.) Rolled Back Protections Against Transgender Students. During his campaign, Trump claimed he "loved the gays", and even held up a rainbow flag at an event. However, actions speak louder than words, and he quickly decided that his campaign rhetoric, though apparently good for snagging votes, was no longer useful in his real life legislative decisions. In February 2017, Trump ended federal protections for transgender students that allowed them to utilize the bathroom that suited their gender identity. This move against transgender students allows each individual state to decide whether or not they wish to, basically, discriminate against trans students. Conservatives claim this decision isn't harmful, and that trans students just have to "use the bathroom of their 'true' gender" ( which is transphobic in itself ), but obviously transgender students will be faced with bullying, and various forms of aggression while attending class due to this. Trump also has stated that he wants to give bosses and landlords a "right to discriminate" against LGBT Americans. He is expected to sign an executive order so religious groups, individuals and businesses can do so. 5.) Created a slew of failed Muslim bans. Donald Trump is still engrossed in a battle that seems to inevitably be headed to the Supreme Court over his "travel band" which, if we're being honest here, is really just a ban on seven predominantly Muslim nations. Trump and the alt-right are obsessed with blaming the entire Muslim world for extremist terrorist actions. Due to this, Trump has repetitively tried to enact travel bans on predominantly Muslim nations, and has been struck down due to this sort of wide spread generalization not only being xenophobic but against our Constitution. Trump claims this action is one that is necessary to, "Keep America Safe," yet when one looks closer, the ban actually excludes countries that Trump has business ties with such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Sketchy..... 6.) Embarrassed the USA. Trump officially embarrassed the USA during his first trip abroad for a multitude of reasons, the biggest being angering our international allies which he seems to continuously take for granted. From enraging the intelligence community in Israel and Europe by publicly confirming sensitive material they told him NOT to leak to dragging out his confirmation of alliance to NATO forces - Trump has repetitively agitated our closest allies including France, Germany, the U.K. and Canada with patronizing commentary, overtly aggressive hand shakes, off-hand remarks and a basic, "I'm not working with you" attitude. Not to mention, can we talk about the glowing orb situation in Saudi Arabia? No biggie, right? 7.) Took to Twitter Continuously. You would think that the president had better things to do, but, apparently not. #Covfefe got more press than a Delaware-sized iceberg breaking off Antarctica, symbolizing a climate crisis that threatens all life on Earth. Needless to say, Trump is obsessed with the social media platform, and has not only embarrassed himself continuously on it but never seems to quit tweeting no matter what hour of the day or night it is. If Obama had tweeted "Covfefe", Fox News would have had 24x7 coverage trying to prove it was a code word for Muslims to overthrow the government. What does covfefe mean, after-all? Incompetence, classism, corruption, and nepotism all in one, of course. 8.) Refused to release his taxes. Donald Trump has said he has absolutely no intention of releasing his tax information. But, why? Trump would be the first president in more than 40 years not to do so, and one can only wonder why that would be. What does he have to hide, other than his claimed "large sums of income." Pieces of Trump's tax return reportedly obtained by the New York Times showed a net loss of about $916 million, which Trump has admitted he used to avoid paying some federal income tax. The story just gets thicker, and thicker doesn't it? 9.) Attacked Net Neutrality. The internet is one of the last, large, fairly accessible communication platforms not yet entirely destroyed by corporate influence. Net Neutrality basically protects all internet entities by ensuring that they all get equal representation, not influenced by money or advertising sums for the most part. For instance, your internet provider doesn't dictate what you do and do not see. However, unsurprisingly, Trump wants to put an end to that, and allow your service provider to do just that - dictate what is and isn't easily and readily available via their own personal interests. Imagine going to the book store, and wanting to read a book on gardening. Yet, the books on drilling for oil are free, and the books on gardening are $50.00. Now shove that analogy into internet terms. Ah, yes, censorship. Smells like typical Trump erasure and suppression of opposition voices. What I love is that the American public blatantly and unabashedly voiced its interest in keeping net neutrality yet, this administration plowed over our insistence and stripped away our right to fair and affordable internet in order to cater to their own egotistical desire to deepen their already bloated and overflowing pockets...some Oligarchy *cough* uh, democracy we live in. Basically, what this means is that they will also lift up content that pays large sums and essentially censor others. Also - want to watch Netflix? Just add on $29.99 a month to enjoy up to 300gbs of streaming data at just $10 for every 100gbs afterwards! Enjoy YouTube? Add another $5! Get the Youtube/Netflix/Hulu Triple Play for just an additional $50 a month! (Throttling fees still apply). Congrats Trump Voters, this is literally what you voted for and literally what ISPs will be able to legally do. 10.) Created a Sea of Nepotism. From Kushner's influence to Ivanka's when did children of a public figure with no government experience himself, magically become political experts, and been allowed to interfere with serious government affairs? Monarchies don't seem to be the kind of system American's typically go for, but with Trump fusing his family and business into his dealings politically, it's unfortunately, comparable. 11.) Filled The Swamp with Raw Sewage by Appointing Billionaires to his cabinet. How exactly do men with vast sums of money legislate in favor on the everyday person when the everyday person has no ties to them personally? Apparently to Donald Trump, filling his cabinet with billionaires equates somehow to "draining the swamp" aka making it "everyday Joe" friendly. How can corporate lobbyists truly be concerned with the well-being of typical citizens, both working-class and marginalized - when they still have ties to their own money making agendas? Trump has officially surrounded himself with like-minded individuals who are all about self-preservation, self-interest and of course, profit. 12.) Favored Tax Cuts for the Rich. After his cabinet appointees came out, who can be surprised? Trump released a one page piece of paper that resembled a flea-market flyer in April, void of any legislative or outlined text. In it, briefly, it stated that Trump, "planned to revamp the tax code." At a closer look, the plan would slash corporate tax rates, repeal a fee on wealthy taxpayer investments, repeal the estate tax for millionaires. Doesn't seem too lucrative for the everyday person, but in reality, it could benefit Trump himself "bigly" - in his own descriptive terminology. 13.) Favored A Healthcare and Budget Revamp that will Hurt the most Vulnerable. From cutting aid programs like Meals on Wheels, to creating a healthcare system that would make almost everything a pre-existing condition, Trump has made it clear that his priorities are to benefit the most comfortable Americans, and stick it to the most vulnerable. Democrats wanted to save 6 billion dollars by cutting federal handouts to oil companies and firms with private jets, but the GOP thought cutting food stamps to over 900,000 veterans and their families was a better way to save money. Trump's budget plan hasn't passed yet, and for this reason, hopefully it's dead on arrival. Now, let's get to the, "AHCA". If passed by the Senate, how will Trumpcare aka the AHCA function? Sure, there will be no requirement/tax if you decide not to get healthcare. However, Medicare will be slashed, leaving those in poverty possibly without any healthcare at all. Rich Americans will receive tax breaks. Younger Americans may pay less due to older, more vulnerable Americans paying 5x more simply due to their age. Under current rules, insurers cannot charge older adults more than three times what they charge young adults for the same coverage. The House bill that was passed would allow them to charge five times as much. FIVE. TIMES. If grandma can't afford her insurance now, just wait. Also, the states would decide what pre-existing conditions they would and would not cover. The list of what the GOP considers as pre-existing conditions is lengthy, including everything from pregnancy and rape to mental health, cancer, and acne. What this means, is if your state decides any or all of these GOP mandated pre-existing conditions isn't eligible for coverage, you won't be covered under any insurance and probably won't be able to afford coverage for care you need. This bill is classist, misogynistic, dangerous, selfish, lacking any empathy, and downright pathetic. Call your Senators, tell them to ensure this bill becomes dead on arrival. Here is the comprehensive list of which pre-existing conditions will get you denied health insurance under the GOP plan that just passed in the House. AIDS/HIV, acid reflux, acne, ADD, addiction, Alzheimer's/dementia, anemia, aneurysm, angioplasty, anorexia, anxiety, arrhythmia, arthritis, asthma, atrial fibrillation, autism, bariatric surgery, basal cell carcinoma, bipolar disorder, blood clot, breast cancer, bulimia, bypass surgery, celiac disease, cerebral aneurysm, cerebral embolism, cerebral palsy, cerebral thrombosis, cervical cancer, colon cancer, colon polyps, congestive heart failure, COPD, Crohn's disease, cystic fibrosis, DMD, depression, diabetes, disabilities, Down syndrome, eating disorder, enlarged prostate, epilepsy, glaucoma, gout, heart disease, heart murmur, heartburn, hemophilia, hepatitis C, herpes, high cholesterol, hypertension, hysterectomy, kidney disease, kidney stones, kidney transplant, leukemia, lung cancer, lupus, lymphoma, mental health issues, migraines, MS, muscular dystrophy, narcolepsy, nasal polyps, obesity, OCD, organ transplant, osteoporosis, pacemaker, panic disorder, paralysis, paraplegia, Parkinson's disease, pregnancy, rape, restless leg syndrome, schizophrenia, seasonal affective disorder, seizures, sickle cell disease, skin cancer, sleep apnea, sleep disorders, stent, stroke, thyroid issues, tooth disease, tuberculosis, and ulcers. 14.) Invited Racist clowns like Nugent, Kid Rock and Palin to the Whitehouse. Trump invited the three to the White House to apparently pose in front of portraits of Hillary Clinton. Palin has repetitively spewed elitist, classist garbage, Kid Rock is a vehement confederate flag supporter, and Nugent has openly stated that he wanted to shoot Obama and Clinton. Which leads us to Kathy Griffin.... 15.) Freaked out over Kathy Griffin. When Griffin created imagery of herself holding up Trump's fake, bloody severed head, the internet exploded. Trump cried foul play as he claimed his son was traumatized from seeing such a thing. When did we decide to hold a comedian to higher regards than a "president"? Trump can endanger generations to come in one day, with one pen stroke, and Kathy Griffin can post a photo decapitating Trump, and yet the photo seemed to matter more? Apparently, to Trump, it's alright to body slam a reporter, and talk about how you sexually abuse women with NO consequences, decide to openly destroy our environment and basic human rights with NO consequences - yet a photo is beyond unacceptable to the far right? People created effigies of Obama, burned and lynched them during his presidency. Sasha Obama was nine years old when the birther conspiracy started on top of it all. The ridiculous outrage over the image was palpably hilarious. Would it be more acceptable if we "grabbed some pussy?" while Nugent hailed for the murder of Obama and Clinton? 16.) Watched Himself on TV, and TV In General Nonstop. From NBC's Chuck Todd to White House staffers we've heard continuous mutterings of Trump's TV addiction. Apparently, Trump closely analyzes every interview after its been taped, often on mute, and focuses on...you guessed it, himself. When he's not doing that, and seemingly infuriating 70% of the planet, he's watching cable TV. Seems, "productive." 17.) RUSSIAGATE. Where to even begin? Trump's administration is submerged in seemingly sketchy secret contacts with the Russians, yet, Trump "isn't" involved? US, European and Australian intelligence knows the 2016 election was hacked by Russia, but how far did it go? Trump wasn't under investigation when he fired Comey, but most likely is now. Trump asked an FBI director for loyalty, as if to, "shove the matter" under the rug, but it's acceptable because he doesn't know what he's doing yet? This matter is one that could go on indefinitely, and with Trump claiming he'll take the stand under oath, it can only get juicier, more ridiculous and more awful. One thing is certain, the ex-FBI Director and Trump can't both be telling the truth. 18.) Attempted to segregate schools with voucher programs. The Washington Post has obtained the details of Trump and Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos’ first education budget proposal, and it spells disaster. The pair of billionaires are planning to gut the education budget by $9.2 billion dollars – 13.6% of the entire department’s funding – and reduce total federal education expenditures by $10.6 billion. Charter school crusader and religious extremist Betsy DeVos, who has pledged to use her position to “advance God’s Kingdom,” has budgeted $400 million for school “choice” vouchers and another $1 billion to “push public schools to adopt choice-friendly policies.” By “school choice,” of course, DeVos and Trump mean “allowing affluent white families to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private religious schools with questionable approaches to scientific education” and deprive schools serving low-income students of desperately needed resources. School “choice” programs originally began as a way for racists to get around desegregation rules in the South, as governors closed public schools and allowed white parents to send their kids to whites-only academies while black children were left with no schools. There is only one federally funded school choice voucher program, in Washington D.C., and a recent Department of Education analysis found that the students in those charter schools performed worse on testing than children who attended public schools. The budget proposal cuts nearly two dozen vital programs, including: - $1.2 billion for after-school -$2.1 billion for teacher training and class-size reduction - $15 million program that provides child care for low-income parents in college - $27 million arts education program two programs targeting Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students, totaling $65 million - $72 million for two international education and foreign language programs - $12 million program for gifted students - $12 million for Special Olympics education programs - $168 million from career and technical education grants - $96 million from adult basic literacy instruction - $13 million from President Obama’s community-building Promise Neighborhoods programs - the entire $1.65 billion fund for “student support and academic enrichment that is meant to help schools pay for, among other things, mental-health services, anti-bullying initiatives, physical education, Advanced Placement courses and science and engineering instruction.” - $700 million in Perkins loans for disadvantaged students - $490 million from a federal work-study program - His plan would also end loan forgiveness for 552,931 people for public servants in rural areas. The United States remains far behind many industrialized nations in academic achievement. Our schools need more funding, not less. Our public school system could use reform, yes, but from skilled educators with decades of experience managing education systems – not an enormously incompetent ideologue like DeVos, whose sole achievement is her role in the Detroit charter school program, which is considered “the biggest school reform disaster in the country.” The children of America cannot afford to let an unqualified religious zealot upend the public school system so she can achieve her lifelong dream of turning America’s schools into Christian camps. The future of our nation depends on it. 19.) Inspired White Supremacists. Hate crimes against people of color have risen since the election of Donald Trump. So has the re-emergence of white supremacist groups in public. From clashes with alt right, and KKK groups that have lead to violence, to the two brave people who stepped in to protect two Muslim women against a man spewing hate speech in Portland and were murdered - when people in power normalize racism and xenophobia it emboldens those with similar beliefs. This is why Trump and this entire xenophobic, hate filled racist "conservative" movement ( among many other reasons ) needs eradicated. 20.) Refused to Listen to the Pope. During their meeting, the Pope not only donned a somber face but a written letter to Trump, telling him why he should not dip out of the Paris Agreement. Trump obviously used the letter as toilet paper, because we now know what his final decision was. 21.) Refused to discuss a livable wage. In his first 100 days, Trump has done nothing to address the issue of wage stagnation. I know a $15 minimum wage seems radical to republicans. You know what's radical? That people working 40+ hours a week are living in poverty, and that those unable to find suitable work are considered unworthy of basic necessities. 22.) Been Involved in Scam, after Scam....Fake for profit university, settled with a fine. Rape allegations, pushed under the rug with settling out of court. Tax Return absurdity. Involving family in serious political decisions. Leaking information about ally intelligence. Tweeting offensive garbage. Fighting with people on twitter due to said garbage. Russiagate, Russiagate, Russiagate - when will it end? Hopefully soon...... 23.) Claimed EVERYTHING EVER was "FAKE NEWS." Removing information and claiming legitimate news to be "fake" while propagating actual propaganda is an Orwellian technique to keep the public in the dark. How much evidence is needed that Trump obstructed justice? When will Republicans put the well-being of others and even themselves above loyalty to their party? It's clear that Donald Trump hasn't fought for the working class, struggling Americans, everyday Americans, veterans or even small business owners. If anything, he's fought to pass legislation for the wealthy, for those that benefit him, those with ties to his business, and legislation with classist, close-minded leanings. It's notable, that Trump views the world as a zero-sum game in which either you "win" and they lose or they win and you lose. It's the personality of a sociopath. As scary as Trump is, this reality show disaster is being used to distract us from the true depth of an economic system built to exploit working, and marginalized people. As stated before, Trump has made it clear that his priorities are to benefit the most comfortable Americans, and stick it to the most vulnerable - all while he destroys our foreign affiliates. What I really, really love - is how anyone speaking out against this country's current capitalist Oligarchical structure is a "snowflake". Over reacting. A "baby." Yet, these ultra conservatives are offended that not everyone is Christian, white, straight, rich, and subordinate to them. When did fighting for universal healthcare, livable wages, social equality, workers well-being, legitimate and affordable education, women's rights and environmental protection become so "unreasonable" to these people? When did logic become radical? When did voting against your own self-interests to better those with wealth become "patriotic"? I see so many extremist, Trump-esc supporters attacking others for speaking out with slurs, xenophobic hatred, gender-based hatred, and pure propaganda fed ignorance. Aside from the fact that they can't formulate an articulated argument without straying from the subject at hand, they'll immediately attack individuals for their appearance, gender, or for striving for working and marginalized people's well-being. Conservatives will spend hours attempting to defend their oppressive corporatist government that doesn't even benefit them, AND even after this detailed list of the awful things that Trump HAS ACTUALLY done or plans to do, they'll still try to defend him.

[kristablogs]

These volunteers are filling in missing pieces of the world map, and helping humanity at the same time

Greenland glacier; 29 April 2019. <br> Today, more than 700 orbiting objects watch Earth all the time, some continually producing images. (European Space Agency/)

The snow hasn’t started yet this October evening in Boulder, Colorado, but the sharp wind and low clouds around Backcountry Pizza & Tap House foretell an early winter storm. Just before 6 p.m., Diane Fritz comes in from the cold, passing pinball machines and pool tables on her way to the back room. Setting down her bag, she takes off her down jacket and quickly orders an IPA before happy hour ends. “Lots of people probably won’t make it,” she says, guessing they’ll be reluctant to brave frozen roads. She shrugs and pulls out her Mac bearing a sticker that reads: “Map Porn.”

Fritz works for Auraria Library in Denver, assisting people who want to incorporate spatial information into their research. If a student were doing a project about energy, for example, she’d show them how to include the location of every oil well in the state. Outside of her job, Fritz also helps lead a MeetUp group—gathering here tonight—that’s merging data about buildings into a crowdsourced map of the area. The project could eventually help emergency services reach people more rapidly, make small businesses more visible, and show residents how their city (one of the fastest growing in the nation) is changing. About 40 people have volunteered so far.

Fritz flips open her laptop to find the how-to presentation she’ll give to any newcomers who venture in. For now, though, her only audience hangs above her: beer signs scattered around the room.

As her computer powers up, the other MeetUp leader, data scientist Margaret Spyker, arrives with member Jim McAndrew, who moved to Pennsylvania and is back for a visit. “If you order quick, you’ll make happy hour,” Fritz urges them.

Spyker grabs a menu from the table, the pair orders with just two minutes to spare, and the triad begins chatting. “Jimmy’s already checked in here on Foursquare,” Spyker says.

McAndrew smiles and shrugs: guilty. Speaking of, Fritz remembers, she’s been meaning to compliment him on a recent sprint on the fitness app Strava, where he tracks his impressively fast runs.

They pause and laugh at their predictability. Even their small talk is geospatial—all about things related to place and time—exactly as you’d expect from people who build maps in their spare hours.

Tonight, they hope to make progress on the so-called Denver Building Import. They’ll overlay shapes, sizes, and addresses from a government database onto a crowdsourced, free map of the world, and merge the two so that the structures become a permanent feature of the digital geography.

The project is part of an international effort called OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004. A cartographic Wikipedia, OSM relies on volunteers—a million since its start, making it the largest such endeavor—to create an ever-evolving representation of the planet. You can view it in a browser or within a platform like Facebook, which relies on it for location information. And although individuals work on it just for fun, it underpins services at huge companies like Amazon and Microsoft. OSM is important and different from maps like Google’s because it’s made by and for the people. It contains information its participants want—not, as McAndrew puts it, “what will make Google Maps money.”

Southern Mongolia; August 15, 2015. <br> The data from satellites sent up by government agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency is often public. (European Space Agency/)

All over, nerdy normals are using mappy data for specific pursuits: Archaeologists have uncovered hidden tombs; police have found missing people; relief organizations have dispatched aid to flood victims; retired spies have located weapons caches; conservationists have detected deforestation; artists have pinpointed secret military installations; and retailers have gauged vacancies in competitors’ parking lots.

A policy adviser and analyst named Josef Koller believes this plethora of frequently updated information might lead to a tipping point he dubs the Geoint Singularity: a time when people with no particular expertise or wealth have access to geospatial data and its interpretation in real time, providing the power to investigate any place as it is right now. In effect, anyone could find a live view of whatever spot on the planet they wanted to see. “The world basically becomes transparent,” says Koller, a systems director at the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research and development center in Southern California.

Koller has been monitoring the space industry since around 2015, taking note as satellites became easier and cheaper to build and launch. Today, more than 700 orbiting objects watch Earth all the time, up from 192 in 2014. That growth means that some continuously produce images, showing your house not as it looked in 2016 but as it looks while you read this. He has also seen artificial intelligence getting smarter. It can, using finely tuned algorithms, count cars and identify cats or your cousin. Finally, he’s seen that with phones and fast networks, people can stream such analyses. Take that to its logical endpoint, and—voilà!—a Geoint Singularity.

We’re not there yet, but we’re well on our way: Satellites capture images of a given sea or skyscraper daily. AI is good at narrow, specific tasks, like recognizing trees or gauging traffic, but integrating different streams—aerial pictures, CCTV feeds, Twitter threads, addresses, current trash-truck locations—remains a wicked problem. Given all that, no one can say if this singularity will come, or how, exactly, regular earthlings’ experiences would change if it did. Maybe people will watch the ice caps melt minute by minute. Maybe they will fact-check municipal claims about building new housing, or whether foreign ships are docking nearby. Maybe they will know, at all times, the best open parking space in the whole city. Or maybe they won’t care very much at all, and mapping skills will remain important but niche, deployed mostly by intelligence agencies, humanitarian groups, and corporations.

At Backcountry, the OpenStreetMap volunteers represent a future in which people do care. They want to know all about their place on the globe. McAndrew pulls up a video on his computer and puts it on loop to set the mood. A dark globe appears on the screen. Bright dots and lines flash across its surface in a DayGlo seizure, tracing countries and cities and the spaces between. It’s an atlas of Earth, drawn chronologically as people add roads, houses, and schools. Other crowdsourced projects serve specific niches; StoryMap lets users highlight the locations in a series of events; Ushahidi helps people share information about things like police encounters. But OpenStreetMap has the broadest ambitions: to capture the entire, always changing planet, and whatever people in each place care about.

McAndrew says, “Every line you see is an edit”—a place now on the map, now truer to the real world.

Northwest Algeria; January 2018. <br> Around the world people have been inspired by satellite imagery. Teachers send kids on global scavenger hunts. (European Space Agency/)

Koller named the Geoint Singularity the way you might name an unbuilt city for which you hadn’t drawn blueprints yet. While the future it represents still seems far off, the technology to achieve it has been developing for decades. The US government launched its first picture-taking satellites in the 1960s, and followed with ones dedicated to military and intelligence needs. Entities like NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the United States Geological Survey sent up craft for scientific use. Their data is largely public, giving access to decades-old records that anyone can compare with today’s.

In the 1990s, business joined in, largely so it could sell pictures to spooky agencies. WorldView Imaging Corporation, now called Maxar, deployed the first privately owned cameras to peer down at Earth. Today the company also sells data to oil and gas companies to monitor pipelines, to mega-retailers to keep an eye on store traffic, and to developers to survey potential construction zones.

In the meantime, a virtual panopticon has emerged, one that no longer just takes pictures. Satellites also nab radio transmissions, weather information, infrared images, and radar data. Drones overfly the planet, street cameras keep watch closer to the ground, smart devices broadcast locations, and governmental datasets—from curb cuts to county lines—live online. With each uptick in detail, the singularity draws closer.

It can only happen, though, if data reaches the public—not exactly the strong suit of private companies. Still, they do sometimes share. Maxar, for instance, ran the first major effort to involve laypeople in image analysis and mapmaking. Called Tomnod, the nine-year program enlisted amateurs during disasters, like the Malaysia Airlines crash in 2014, or for scientific research, such as counting Weddell seals in Antarctica for a 2016 census. During crises, Maxar also makes imagery available to groups like Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, which sponsors crowdsourced efforts to plot crisis-plagued regions—say, after earthquakes, or to chart vaccine distribution, or understand refugee migration.

Companies also occasionally give their data to scientists who are studying climate change, journalists reporting on hard-to-reach places, and analysts trying to suss out global tensions. One of those is David Schmerler, who researches nuclear-weapon and missile developments at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California.

Schmerler doesn’t really have formal training in satellite-image analysis, but with his morning coffee in hand, he logs on to the website of a company called Planet, which operates around 140 satellites that take pictures of all the land on Earth every day. Some groups use the data to track deforestation, or calculate how many cargo ships reached a given port on Tuesday. But, as the caffeine hits, Schmerler zooms in on a few sites in North Korea. “If I see a lot of road activity, or if a building blows up, or they changed the roof, something is happening there,” he says. In the old days, you would learn of such things only days or months later, when an overscheduled satellite got around to taking a look. Today, you can see it today.

Schmerler sees all this geospatial data as a path to truth in a twisty world. “You can verify all sorts of claims using satellite imagery,” he points out. And when he says “you,” he means it. “When someone says something is changing in the world, we don’t have to rely on that statement. If someone says the ice caps are melting, you can log on and see that happen.”

Colorado is a geospatial hub of sorts: It’s home to Maxar, NOAA offices, and a cluster of younger satellite startups, all of them full of people whose geo-knowledge base is generally better than average. Geospatial Amateurs, based in the Denver metro area, is another MeetUp that believes in the personal utility of all this data. “Amateurs” is a cheeky name. Many members, some of whom are also part of OSM, work in fields at least somewhat related to mapping or Earth observation, like environmental science or transportation. They don’t want sponsorships or corporate meddling or professional influence. Instead, the group wants to foster what leader Brian Timoney calls “roll your own” projects. It’s DIY, but with images, sensor readings, and maps instead of needle, thread, and aida cloth. “The idea,” he says, “is you can answer geospatial questions that impact your everyday life.”

To keep the club more approachable, Timoney—a data analyst who runs a consulting firm—has tried to create a low-key vibe, starting with the MeetUp descriptions themselves. Take the invitation to the August 2019 gathering: A scientist demonstrates how to use radar and laser data to calculate snow depths on whatever black-or-blue slopes the attendees personally care about. “After this presentation, you’ll be looking around your ski mountain with a subtler eye,” read the website, “while the basic chads clogging I-70 will still be taking a resort’s mid-mountain snowpack-depth reading at face value.”

At other meetings, members show-and-tell their homebrewed solutions, which use municipal datasets, open-source information from agencies like NOAA, and legal hacks of companies like the Car2Go rental service. An actual Chad made a pedestrian map of sidewalks in the Denver area. Member Adam Bickford helped a city-council candidate optimize canvassing routes. And Ricardo Oliveira took the real-time feed of bus locations and created his own display. (Those examples happened before big political campaigns and organizations built their own versions.) “We want to get the word out about the rich variety of datasets that are available,” Timoney says, “and inspire people.”

Around the world, people have been inspired, particularly by satellite imagery. Teachers send kids on global scavenger hunts. Homebodies see places they might never visit, guided by websites like Google Sightseeing (not affiliated with Google but rather with two guys). Farmers figuring out where their corn should go overlay snaps with Google Earth satellite maps. Hikers pore over them to find unmarked trails. Hunters consult them to predict where the animals will be.

If the singularity arrives, those pursuits, though, will look different: Second graders and skilled alpinists will be aware of the planet as it is—not as it was last week, last month, or last year. What if you could watch the travels of a specific herd of elk every day? What if you could tell how crowded your tourist destination was an hour ago? What if day-trippers could peep the percentage of fall-turned leaves before they set out on the road?

Bolovian Salt Flats; May 2017. <br> DIY groups hope the availability of satellite data will lead to more localized mapping projects. (European Space Agency/)

At Backcountry Pizza, meanwhile, the mappers finally have a new arrival, someone who has never worked on this project before: Travis Burt, a developer with utility company Franklin Energy. Burt immediately pulls out his laptop to learn how to begin merging Denver building data with the OpenStreetMap grid.

While Spyker and McAndrew chat in the corner, group leader Fritz tells Burt how to register so that he can see data from the Denver Regional Council of Governments—which, according to Fritz, “we lovingly call Dr. Cog.” Every two years, Dr. Cog pays to fly picture-taking planes over the metro area. Analysts then use that imagery to trace the boundaries of buildings, accurate to around 3 inches. While all of the information is public and free, it’s not especially layperson-friendly. But once it’s in OpenStreetMap, it won’t be much harder for anyone to access and understand than Google Maps.

Pinning numbers to virtual buildings is as important as the shapes and spots on the ground. “We don’t actually know, even in our super-urban area, what the addresses are,” Spyker says. That’s a problem for 911 operators, who can’t send responders to a location if they don’t know exactly where it is. Because the Denver area is changing so rapidly, the mappers hope to keep updating the buildings, creating a historical record—a sort of pencil-mark-on-the-doorjamb growth chart—of how the city becomes what it will be. In the OSM, you can check out the archive of edits just like you can on Wikipedia.

Denver, of course, isn’t the only city lacking user-friendly data, and the problem is even more acute in rural and developing areas. Across the world, more than 150 OpenStreetMap chapters are helping to make their regions visible, tracking an ever-shifting landscape of roads and borders.

Coloring in the map can also just be fun. Spyker and Fritz are creating a city art directory, and soon they’ll be able to peg graffiti and murals to the walls of specific structures. Green thumbs could one day calculate how many hours of sunshine their building-shadowed urban gardens will get. A bookstore owner could estimate how many people will walk by their window display.

Under Fritz’s helpful tutelage, Burt finally gets to the point of actually working. He stares mirror-eyed at the map, all of its layers shining from his screen, waiting for him to paint on another. “Ah,” he says, “this looks beautiful.”

“Did you hear that?” Fritz asks Spyker, who’s pulling up a site she made to help people plan pub crawls on bikes. “He said it was beautiful.”

The MeetUp group at Backcountry Pizza tonight represents the vanguard of the Geoint Singularity. But it’s also fair to ask if a tipping point is something the average person wants, needs, or will ever care about. Consider, for instance, that most folks are content with spinning through Google Earth, where the images are usually a couple of years old. “That satisfies most people’s basic curiosity,” says Geospatial Amateurs’ Timoney.

The phenomenon’s godfather, Koller, notes that the singularity really requires a useful idea, one that cheaply and easily integrates real-time data and analysis, probably through a smartphone or browser interface. The glut of information is too much for our puny brains to parse quickly, which means we’ll also need AI to get smarter than it is now, and have the particular kind of savvy to serve up what people actually want. “The key point will be to find that killer application,” he says, a reason that an all-seeing eye on Earth would make the everyday easier or more efficient. “I don’t think anybody has really identified that yet.”

This wouldn’t be the first time we couldn’t clearly see the future. “If someone had asked me some question in 1980 about GPS, I’d be like, ‘I don’t know if it’s useful to see where you are,’” says Georgia Tech’s Mariel Borowitz, author of Open Space: The Global Effort for Open Access to Environmental Satellite Data. But here we are, with Tinder and Yelp and our general inability to navigate without a robot voice in our ear, because of GPS and our smartphones’ ability to put them in our palms.

Borowitz has questions, though, about how privacy protections will evolve. “I can imagine when you have ubiquitous data, your ability to track individuals or specific individual movements increases,” she says. The rub for watching the whole world change is that you are part of that world.

And not every “you” will get access to that change. “What I think stands in the way of closing the digital divide is the growing trend of the rich versus the poor,” Koller says. When only the wealthy can reach the bounty, they also control how information gets collected, used, and interpreted.

That’s why self-rolled initiatives aim to put power in more hands. Like, for example, the hands of people currently PayPaling their share of the pizza bill to Fritz. Only one of them—Burt—has mapped anything tonight. But that’s fine. As much as this group is about geospatial data, it’s also about connecting a community, and forging bright lines between them.

McAndrew tilts his eyes toward the window. The storm has fully arrived. He stares for a second before pulling out his phone and punching up a real-time traffic display. “You can tell where the snow’s the worst,” he says, flashing his screen toward us. Green segments, where cars are flowing, slam into red ones, where drivers have slowed, flakes undoubtedly hypnotic in their headlights.

When we step outside, our eyes confirm the situation: The snow has begun to stick. It piles up on cars and blades of grass. It reveals the outlines of everything, showing our footprints as we walk away from each other, past buildings yet to be imported.

This story appears in the Spring 2020, Origins issue of Popular Science.

[scootoaster]

These volunteers are filling in missing pieces of the world map, and helping humanity at the same time

Greenland glacier; 29 April 2019. <br> Today, more than 700 orbiting objects watch Earth all the time, some continually producing images. (European Space Agency/)

The snow hasn’t started yet this October evening in Boulder, Colorado, but the sharp wind and low clouds around Backcountry Pizza & Tap House foretell an early winter storm. Just before 6 p.m., Diane Fritz comes in from the cold, passing pinball machines and pool tables on her way to the back room. Setting down her bag, she takes off her down jacket and quickly orders an IPA before happy hour ends. “Lots of people probably won’t make it,” she says, guessing they’ll be reluctant to brave frozen roads. She shrugs and pulls out her Mac bearing a sticker that reads: “Map Porn.”

Fritz works for Auraria Library in Denver, assisting people who want to incorporate spatial information into their research. If a student were doing a project about energy, for example, she’d show them how to include the location of every oil well in the state. Outside of her job, Fritz also helps lead a MeetUp group—gathering here tonight—that’s merging data about buildings into a crowdsourced map of the area. The project could eventually help emergency services reach people more rapidly, make small businesses more visible, and show residents how their city (one of the fastest growing in the nation) is changing. About 40 people have volunteered so far.

Fritz flips open her laptop to find the how-to presentation she’ll give to any newcomers who venture in. For now, though, her only audience hangs above her: beer signs scattered around the room.

As her computer powers up, the other MeetUp leader, data scientist Margaret Spyker, arrives with member Jim McAndrew, who moved to Pennsylvania and is back for a visit. “If you order quick, you’ll make happy hour,” Fritz urges them.

Spyker grabs a menu from the table, the pair orders with just two minutes to spare, and the triad begins chatting. “Jimmy’s already checked in here on Foursquare,” Spyker says.

McAndrew smiles and shrugs: guilty. Speaking of, Fritz remembers, she’s been meaning to compliment him on a recent sprint on the fitness app Strava, where he tracks his impressively fast runs.

They pause and laugh at their predictability. Even their small talk is geospatial—all about things related to place and time—exactly as you’d expect from people who build maps in their spare hours.

Tonight, they hope to make progress on the so-called Denver Building Import. They’ll overlay shapes, sizes, and addresses from a government database onto a crowdsourced, free map of the world, and merge the two so that the structures become a permanent feature of the digital geography.

The project is part of an international effort called OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004. A cartographic Wikipedia, OSM relies on volunteers—a million since its start, making it the largest such endeavor—to create an ever-evolving representation of the planet. You can view it in a browser or within a platform like Facebook, which relies on it for location information. And although individuals work on it just for fun, it underpins services at huge companies like Amazon and Microsoft. OSM is important and different from maps like Google’s because it’s made by and for the people. It contains information its participants want—not, as McAndrew puts it, “what will make Google Maps money.”

Southern Mongolia; August 15, 2015. <br> The data from satellites sent up by government agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency is often public. (European Space Agency/)

All over, nerdy normals are using mappy data for specific pursuits: Archaeologists have uncovered hidden tombs; police have found missing people; relief organizations have dispatched aid to flood victims; retired spies have located weapons caches; conservationists have detected deforestation; artists have pinpointed secret military installations; and retailers have gauged vacancies in competitors’ parking lots.

A policy adviser and analyst named Josef Koller believes this plethora of frequently updated information might lead to a tipping point he dubs the Geoint Singularity: a time when people with no particular expertise or wealth have access to geospatial data and its interpretation in real time, providing the power to investigate any place as it is right now. In effect, anyone could find a live view of whatever spot on the planet they wanted to see. “The world basically becomes transparent,” says Koller, a systems director at the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research and development center in Southern California.

Koller has been monitoring the space industry since around 2015, taking note as satellites became easier and cheaper to build and launch. Today, more than 700 orbiting objects watch Earth all the time, up from 192 in 2014. That growth means that some continuously produce images, showing your house not as it looked in 2016 but as it looks while you read this. He has also seen artificial intelligence getting smarter. It can, using finely tuned algorithms, count cars and identify cats or your cousin. Finally, he’s seen that with phones and fast networks, people can stream such analyses. Take that to its logical endpoint, and—voilà!—a Geoint Singularity.

We’re not there yet, but we’re well on our way: Satellites capture images of a given sea or skyscraper daily. AI is good at narrow, specific tasks, like recognizing trees or gauging traffic, but integrating different streams—aerial pictures, CCTV feeds, Twitter threads, addresses, current trash-truck locations—remains a wicked problem. Given all that, no one can say if this singularity will come, or how, exactly, regular earthlings’ experiences would change if it did. Maybe people will watch the ice caps melt minute by minute. Maybe they will fact-check municipal claims about building new housing, or whether foreign ships are docking nearby. Maybe they will know, at all times, the best open parking space in the whole city. Or maybe they won’t care very much at all, and mapping skills will remain important but niche, deployed mostly by intelligence agencies, humanitarian groups, and corporations.

At Backcountry, the OpenStreetMap volunteers represent a future in which people do care. They want to know all about their place on the globe. McAndrew pulls up a video on his computer and puts it on loop to set the mood. A dark globe appears on the screen. Bright dots and lines flash across its surface in a DayGlo seizure, tracing countries and cities and the spaces between. It’s an atlas of Earth, drawn chronologically as people add roads, houses, and schools. Other crowdsourced projects serve specific niches; StoryMap lets users highlight the locations in a series of events; Ushahidi helps people share information about things like police encounters. But OpenStreetMap has the broadest ambitions: to capture the entire, always changing planet, and whatever people in each place care about.

McAndrew says, “Every line you see is an edit”—a place now on the map, now truer to the real world.

Northwest Algeria; January 2018. <br> Around the world people have been inspired by satellite imagery. Teachers send kids on global scavenger hunts. (European Space Agency/)

Koller named the Geoint Singularity the way you might name an unbuilt city for which you hadn’t drawn blueprints yet. While the future it represents still seems far off, the technology to achieve it has been developing for decades. The US government launched its first picture-taking satellites in the 1960s, and followed with ones dedicated to military and intelligence needs. Entities like NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the United States Geological Survey sent up craft for scientific use. Their data is largely public, giving access to decades-old records that anyone can compare with today’s.

In the 1990s, business joined in, largely so it could sell pictures to spooky agencies. WorldView Imaging Corporation, now called Maxar, deployed the first privately owned cameras to peer down at Earth. Today the company also sells data to oil and gas companies to monitor pipelines, to mega-retailers to keep an eye on store traffic, and to developers to survey potential construction zones.

In the meantime, a virtual panopticon has emerged, one that no longer just takes pictures. Satellites also nab radio transmissions, weather information, infrared images, and radar data. Drones overfly the planet, street cameras keep watch closer to the ground, smart devices broadcast locations, and governmental datasets—from curb cuts to county lines—live online. With each uptick in detail, the singularity draws closer.

It can only happen, though, if data reaches the public—not exactly the strong suit of private companies. Still, they do sometimes share. Maxar, for instance, ran the first major effort to involve laypeople in image analysis and mapmaking. Called Tomnod, the nine-year program enlisted amateurs during disasters, like the Malaysia Airlines crash in 2014, or for scientific research, such as counting Weddell seals in Antarctica for a 2016 census. During crises, Maxar also makes imagery available to groups like Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, which sponsors crowdsourced efforts to plot crisis-plagued regions—say, after earthquakes, or to chart vaccine distribution, or understand refugee migration.

Companies also occasionally give their data to scientists who are studying climate change, journalists reporting on hard-to-reach places, and analysts trying to suss out global tensions. One of those is David Schmerler, who researches nuclear-weapon and missile developments at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California.

Schmerler doesn’t really have formal training in satellite-image analysis, but with his morning coffee in hand, he logs on to the website of a company called Planet, which operates around 140 satellites that take pictures of all the land on Earth every day. Some groups use the data to track deforestation, or calculate how many cargo ships reached a given port on Tuesday. But, as the caffeine hits, Schmerler zooms in on a few sites in North Korea. “If I see a lot of road activity, or if a building blows up, or they changed the roof, something is happening there,” he says. In the old days, you would learn of such things only days or months later, when an overscheduled satellite got around to taking a look. Today, you can see it today.

Schmerler sees all this geospatial data as a path to truth in a twisty world. “You can verify all sorts of claims using satellite imagery,” he points out. And when he says “you,” he means it. “When someone says something is changing in the world, we don’t have to rely on that statement. If someone says the ice caps are melting, you can log on and see that happen.”

Colorado is a geospatial hub of sorts: It’s home to Maxar, NOAA offices, and a cluster of younger satellite startups, all of them full of people whose geo-knowledge base is generally better than average. Geospatial Amateurs, based in the Denver metro area, is another MeetUp that believes in the personal utility of all this data. “Amateurs” is a cheeky name. Many members, some of whom are also part of OSM, work in fields at least somewhat related to mapping or Earth observation, like environmental science or transportation. They don’t want sponsorships or corporate meddling or professional influence. Instead, the group wants to foster what leader Brian Timoney calls “roll your own” projects. It’s DIY, but with images, sensor readings, and maps instead of needle, thread, and aida cloth. “The idea,” he says, “is you can answer geospatial questions that impact your everyday life.”

To keep the club more approachable, Timoney—a data analyst who runs a consulting firm—has tried to create a low-key vibe, starting with the MeetUp descriptions themselves. Take the invitation to the August 2019 gathering: A scientist demonstrates how to use radar and laser data to calculate snow depths on whatever black-or-blue slopes the attendees personally care about. “After this presentation, you’ll be looking around your ski mountain with a subtler eye,” read the website, “while the basic chads clogging I-70 will still be taking a resort’s mid-mountain snowpack-depth reading at face value.”

At other meetings, members show-and-tell their homebrewed solutions, which use municipal datasets, open-source information from agencies like NOAA, and legal hacks of companies like the Car2Go rental service. An actual Chad made a pedestrian map of sidewalks in the Denver area. Member Adam Bickford helped a city-council candidate optimize canvassing routes. And Ricardo Oliveira took the real-time feed of bus locations and created his own display. (Those examples happened before big political campaigns and organizations built their own versions.) “We want to get the word out about the rich variety of datasets that are available,” Timoney says, “and inspire people.”

Around the world, people have been inspired, particularly by satellite imagery. Teachers send kids on global scavenger hunts. Homebodies see places they might never visit, guided by websites like Google Sightseeing (not affiliated with Google but rather with two guys). Farmers figuring out where their corn should go overlay snaps with Google Earth satellite maps. Hikers pore over them to find unmarked trails. Hunters consult them to predict where the animals will be.

If the singularity arrives, those pursuits, though, will look different: Second graders and skilled alpinists will be aware of the planet as it is—not as it was last week, last month, or last year. What if you could watch the travels of a specific herd of elk every day? What if you could tell how crowded your tourist destination was an hour ago? What if day-trippers could peep the percentage of fall-turned leaves before they set out on the road?

Bolovian Salt Flats; May 2017. <br> DIY groups hope the availability of satellite data will lead to more localized mapping projects. (European Space Agency/)

At Backcountry Pizza, meanwhile, the mappers finally have a new arrival, someone who has never worked on this project before: Travis Burt, a developer with utility company Franklin Energy. Burt immediately pulls out his laptop to learn how to begin merging Denver building data with the OpenStreetMap grid.

While Spyker and McAndrew chat in the corner, group leader Fritz tells Burt how to register so that he can see data from the Denver Regional Council of Governments—which, according to Fritz, “we lovingly call Dr. Cog.” Every two years, Dr. Cog pays to fly picture-taking planes over the metro area. Analysts then use that imagery to trace the boundaries of buildings, accurate to around 3 inches. While all of the information is public and free, it’s not especially layperson-friendly. But once it’s in OpenStreetMap, it won’t be much harder for anyone to access and understand than Google Maps.

Pinning numbers to virtual buildings is as important as the shapes and spots on the ground. “We don’t actually know, even in our super-urban area, what the addresses are,” Spyker says. That’s a problem for 911 operators, who can’t send responders to a location if they don’t know exactly where it is. Because the Denver area is changing so rapidly, the mappers hope to keep updating the buildings, creating a historical record—a sort of pencil-mark-on-the-doorjamb growth chart—of how the city becomes what it will be. In the OSM, you can check out the archive of edits just like you can on Wikipedia.

Denver, of course, isn’t the only city lacking user-friendly data, and the problem is even more acute in rural and developing areas. Across the world, more than 150 OpenStreetMap chapters are helping to make their regions visible, tracking an ever-shifting landscape of roads and borders.

Coloring in the map can also just be fun. Spyker and Fritz are creating a city art directory, and soon they’ll be able to peg graffiti and murals to the walls of specific structures. Green thumbs could one day calculate how many hours of sunshine their building-shadowed urban gardens will get. A bookstore owner could estimate how many people will walk by their window display.

Under Fritz’s helpful tutelage, Burt finally gets to the point of actually working. He stares mirror-eyed at the map, all of its layers shining from his screen, waiting for him to paint on another. “Ah,” he says, “this looks beautiful.”

“Did you hear that?” Fritz asks Spyker, who’s pulling up a site she made to help people plan pub crawls on bikes. “He said it was beautiful.”

The MeetUp group at Backcountry Pizza tonight represents the vanguard of the Geoint Singularity. But it’s also fair to ask if a tipping point is something the average person wants, needs, or will ever care about. Consider, for instance, that most folks are content with spinning through Google Earth, where the images are usually a couple of years old. “That satisfies most people’s basic curiosity,” says Geospatial Amateurs’ Timoney.

The phenomenon’s godfather, Koller, notes that the singularity really requires a useful idea, one that cheaply and easily integrates real-time data and analysis, probably through a smartphone or browser interface. The glut of information is too much for our puny brains to parse quickly, which means we’ll also need AI to get smarter than it is now, and have the particular kind of savvy to serve up what people actually want. “The key point will be to find that killer application,” he says, a reason that an all-seeing eye on Earth would make the everyday easier or more efficient. “I don’t think anybody has really identified that yet.”

This wouldn’t be the first time we couldn’t clearly see the future. “If someone had asked me some question in 1980 about GPS, I’d be like, ‘I don’t know if it’s useful to see where you are,’” says Georgia Tech’s Mariel Borowitz, author of Open Space: The Global Effort for Open Access to Environmental Satellite Data. But here we are, with Tinder and Yelp and our general inability to navigate without a robot voice in our ear, because of GPS and our smartphones’ ability to put them in our palms.

Borowitz has questions, though, about how privacy protections will evolve. “I can imagine when you have ubiquitous data, your ability to track individuals or specific individual movements increases,” she says. The rub for watching the whole world change is that you are part of that world.

And not every “you” will get access to that change. “What I think stands in the way of closing the digital divide is the growing trend of the rich versus the poor,” Koller says. When only the wealthy can reach the bounty, they also control how information gets collected, used, and interpreted.

That’s why self-rolled initiatives aim to put power in more hands. Like, for example, the hands of people currently PayPaling their share of the pizza bill to Fritz. Only one of them—Burt—has mapped anything tonight. But that’s fine. As much as this group is about geospatial data, it’s also about connecting a community, and forging bright lines between them.

McAndrew tilts his eyes toward the window. The storm has fully arrived. He stares for a second before pulling out his phone and punching up a real-time traffic display. “You can tell where the snow’s the worst,” he says, flashing his screen toward us. Green segments, where cars are flowing, slam into red ones, where drivers have slowed, flakes undoubtedly hypnotic in their headlights.

When we step outside, our eyes confirm the situation: The snow has begun to stick. It piles up on cars and blades of grass. It reveals the outlines of everything, showing our footprints as we walk away from each other, past buildings yet to be imported.

This story appears in the Spring 2020, Origins issue of Popular Science.

[lorrainecparker]

CREATING YOUR OWN DCP’S – DAVINCI RESOLVE 14 SETUP

In this article, we’re going to talk about DaVinci Resolve, when it comes to creating DCP’s. What makes Resolve interesting, and different from the other NLE’s, is the fact that you can use it as your editor to, not only edit your project, but you can use it as the intermediary between your NLE and your DCP creation software. Now, keep in mind that Resolve has EasyDCP functionality built into it, but for the purpose of this article, we’re going to assume that, much like in the other lessons, the goal is XYZ color space and creating JPEG2000 sequences to send to your DCP creation application. Let’s get rolling!

We’re going to use the newest version of DaVinci Resolve for this article, because I figured “Why not? It only came out yesterday, so let’s take it for a spin!”, and to be perfectly honest, as of me writing this article, Resolve 14 was released just yesterday, and we can see if the workflow for all the previous versions of Resolve (which has been the same), can be carried forward. We’re going to get things rolling in this article by talking about bringing your footage in from your other NLE’s like Media Composer, Premiere and Final Cut Pro X. Once you’ve launched Resolve 14 (R14) you’ll be brought to the project creation window. Go ahead and create a new project. What I normally do is create one project per DCP.

Once you’ve created a new project, I’ve called our’s Waterfalls for the sake of this article, R14 will immediately open, and you’ll be now sitting at the editing screen.

We’ve actually gotten a little ahead of ourselves, and I want to get in first, and set up our project for the DCP creation. The first thing we need to decide, is Flat or Scope. Now, I’m not going to go too much into Flat and Scope formats, as you can read all about them in a previous article about DCP creation. We’re going to assume Flat for this article. Let’s hit SHFT+9 on the keyboard on both Mac and Windows, to call up the Project Properties window. In here is where we’re going to set up our final resolution for creating our DCP. Don’t worry about the raster dimensions of your clip, as we’re going to set that here. We’re going to set our timeline resolution at the top to be 1998×1080 DCI Flat 1.85, and we’re going to leave our frame rate at 24. Keep in mind that your frame rate might change, based on the frame rate you exported your clip as, but you’ll want to keep it as one of the supported FPS’. We’re going to leave ours as 24, as we’re going to do the 23.98 to 24 frame conversion in R14. Once you’ve got your project settings the way you like, simply hit “Save” and we’re ready to bring some footage into R14.

Alright, so let’s back up and bring our footage into R14. Click on the “Media” button at the left side of the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Once here, you can right click on the Media Pool or Master window, to call up the menu, and navigate to the “Import Media” option. Once there, you can import the clip (or clips) you need to create your JPEG 2000 image sequence from. Once you have it in the Media Pool, you can drag the clip directly into your timeline. You’ll notice that once you do, R14 will immediately tell you that your clip and the timeline’s frame rate/raster dimensions don’t match.

Don’t change anything. We already have everything set up the way we want them in our project settings, so we’re going to conform our clip to our Project’s settings. Once you select “Don’t Match”, your clip will appear in your timeline. You’ll notice that in our case, we’re working with 5.1 audio, which will come into play in just a second. Let’s talk about the video right now. If you look closely at the left and right sides of the record window, you’ll notice that our video is slightly pillarboxed, which we will need to fix. Remember, we’re going from 1920×1080 to 1998×1080, so we’re actually working with a slightly wider frame, and we need to compensate for that. Let’s make that fix right now. If you head over to the Color Tab, we can make the necessary adjustment. Now, don’t get panicked when you see the Color Tab, as we’re only going to deal with a very, very (and I mean very, very) small portion of it, and if you look towards the center of the screen, you’ll notice some buttons that change up the tool(s) that you’re working with. The tool we want looks like this.

This button will bring up the Sizing tools, and you can make a very minor “Zoom” scaling adjustment, to make sure that your footage fits into the frame correctly, and essentially remove the pillarboxing.

With all of that being said, we’ve been talking about working with a single clip that has been brought in from another NLE. If you’ve decided that R14 is going to be your NLE, you have to make an important decision about how the workflow you’re going to use. You can use the technique we’re using here, which is to edit in the raster dimension and frame rate of your broadcast master, export, and re-import a single clip to work with in your R14 timeline, OR you can just set your project up for a DCP delivery (Flat or Scope), adjust all your clips so they fit inside that frame, and then follow the workflow from the second half of this article. Whichever way you choose to work is up to you, but for me, the best way to work is to export a master that you can re-import, and then set up your DCP from there. Again, my own personal opinion.

Now that we have our video sized correctly in the Flat frame, let’s now talk about everyone’s favorite topic, and that is the XYZ color conversion. It’s something that I’ve received a few e-mails about, and it’s from readers who thought that my tip about adding the XYZ LUT into your timeline, and then adding the XYZ>REC709 LUT to see what the conversion process looked like, was a clever idea. This way you can make necessary alterations to the luma and chroma of your footage, and make sure it’s going to look exactly what you expect it to look like. Now, something that’s important to keep in mind is that R14 ships with the REC709 to XYZ LUT built in, but you’ll need to download and install the XYZ to REC709 LUT yourself. To find that LUT, you’re going to head over to Michael Phillips’ 24p.com, and find this link. You’ll notice immediately that you’re brought to the blog entry for exactly what we’re talking about, and can download not only the XYZ>REC709 LUT, but also the REC709>XYZ LUT, if you happened to need it (which we don’t). To install the LUT, so it’s ready to use in Resolve, you’ll navigate to:

Mac: Library>Application Support>BlackMagic Design>DaVinci Resolve>Support>LUT>DCI

Windows: C:/ProgramData/BlackMagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/Support/LUT/DCI

Once you’ve copied the XYZ>REC709 LUT into this (these) location(s), either launch R14, or if you’re already in the application, we’re going to need to tell R14 that we’ve updated the LUT’s, and it needs to add this new one to the list, so we can add it to our clip. Head to your Project Settings, and to the “Color Management” section, by clicking on it on the left hand side of the window. Once here, simply hit “Update Lists” at the bottom of the window, and you’re all set.

This is how you add LUT’s to work with them in R14. Once you’ve done this, we’re going to head back to the “Color” module (this is where we did the zoom in on our footage), and we’re now going to add both LUT’s (XYZ and REC709) to our footage. First thing’s first, since i don’t want to alter the main image, in case we want to do some color correction to it, let’s add two new nodes to our image. We can do that by simply hitting ALT (Win) or OPT (Mac) on the keyboard, with the main node selected. Your node layout should now look like this:

Now simply hit the same shortcut to add a second node. You can see where I’m going with this. Select the first node you added, labelled in R14 as Node #2, right click on it, and head down to 3D LUT>DCI>REC709 to DCI XYZ (or P3 or sRGB, whichever color space you’re working in).

This does the conversion to XYZ color space. Now do the exact same thing to Node 3, except this time, do the conversion back to REC709. Now that you’ve done this, you’ve essentially done the color space round trip, and to get an idea of what the “Before” and “After” images look like, you can simply hit OPT/ALT and D to turn the color space nodes on and off, and get an idea of exactly what is going on with the luminance. Now, you can simply make any adjustments you need to make to Node #1, so this way when the conversion happens, the “re-converted” image will match more of the original look, that it would have if you had left it alone. One thing that is exceptionally important for me to point out is that once you have your image color corrected the way you want, taking into account the shift if luminance, is that you’ll want to remove the LUT’s from your video, as we will be adding the XYZ LUT back onto our video, when we do the export to JPEG 2000 towards the end of the article.

Alright, that takes care of my video, now what about my audio. Many people don’t bring their audio into R14, as they figure that since it was fine in their NLE, it will be fine here. That, for the most part, is true, but for me, I like to make sure that all my audio lines up and is in sync, and the best way to do that is to bring it around for the R14 process as well. AND, since we are doing a frame rate conversion, as well, I like to make sure that my audio follows the same pipeline as my video. Something else that’s exceptionally important for me to mention, and that is that BlackMagic Design has drastically changed how Resolve handles audio in this release (Fairlight), so if you’re reading this article, and using a different version of R14, this section might not make a lot of sense, so keep that in mind.

The first thing that I normally like to do with my audio is to “unlink” it from the video, and that can simply be done by right clicking on the audio portion of my clip, and simply hitting “Link Clips”. The next thing I like to do is to make sure that all my audio tracks are “Mono”. Remember, even though we are talking about a 5.1 audio mix (CH1:L CH2:R CH3:C CH4:Lfe CH5:LS CH6:RS), this is not one 5.1 audio clip. It’s six mono channels that make up the six channel 5.1 mix, so technically, each of these tracks is Mono, and we’re going to make sure we set them back to be Mono, so when we output, that’s what we get. The next thing you’ll notice is that beside each of the audio tracks, you’ll notice a number like 2.0 or 5.1. This represents the type track your audio is on. For us, 1.0 or Mono is what we’re looking for. Simply right click on the on the left side of the track itself, and select “Change Track Type To”, and select “Mono”. You’ll notice your track ID changes to 1.0. Do this for all the tracks, and then you’re ready to export your 5.1 audio as a single audio track containing your surround mix.

EXPORTING

Alright, here’s where we get our JPEG2000 image sequence, as well as our 5.1 audio set up and ready to go. Please keep in mind that I am aware that you can export directly for EasyDCP right from within R14, but I’m not going to cover that in this lesson. We’re going to save that for the actual DCP creation article(s). Okay, let’s get started. Head over to the “Deliver” tab, and the first thing you’re going to want to do is to set an output location for where you want your audio and JPEG2000 image sequence to go to.

IMAGE

Once you’ve done that, we’re ready to set up our video and this is where, in many cases, things fall off the rails. The Format and Codec drop downs are pretty self explanatory. We want JPEG2000 as the Format, and you’ll notice that as soon as you select it, the Codec immediately changes to 2K DCI, and most people think that’s fine, and they continue on with the output process but, if you happen to actually drop down the Codec menu, you’ll immediately notice that there is actually a codec for DCI FLAT, SCOPE and FULL, which means that you do need to set your codec (once you’ve selected JPEG2000) to match the raster dimension of the project you’re working on. In our case it will be DCI FLAT.

Something that I also want to point out is that if you are working from an “editing” master, meaning you’ve cut all your footage in R14, and are now ready to export, you’ll want to select “Single Clip”, which is the default export type. You will also notice that once you select JPEG2000 as your export type, it will immediately disable your audio export, which is fine for now. We’ll come back and take care of that in a second. By default your timeline will default to the maximum bitrate of 250 Mbit/sec (which is what we want), and your timeline will also have a frame rate of 24 fps. You can ignore the Advanced Settings, as we don’t need to set anything in there, for the purposes of making our DCP. Okay, Let’s head to the “File” tab to give our export a name, we’ll call it “Main DCP Waterfall Export”, and we’ll add this to the Render Queue.

Since R14 doesn’t like to export it’s JPEG2000 sequences with audio, we’re going to do this as a two step process. Head back to the video tab, and deselect “Export Video”. Now, the audio tab becomes active again, and we can select it, to set up our audio for export. Again, because we’re using R14, this step is a little different than it would have been done previously. In the Audio tab, we’re going to select WAVE and Linear PCM as our Format and Codec respectively, and we’re also going to make sure that we keep out bit depth as 24.

Now here’s where things are a little different than in the past. You’ll notice that there’s an “Output Track” drop down option below the Bit Depth. By default it’s set to “Main 1 (Stereo)”. We want to take the tracks that we made Mono in our timeline, and export it to one clip, that we can then take and import into our DCP creation application. With the layout the way it is now, we’ll be exporting one stereo clip. What we want to do is to take that Output Track (1), and assign it to the first audio track in our timeline, by dropping it down to “Timeline Track”. You’ll notice immediately that R14 defaults to choosing track 1, and it’s identifying it as Mono, which is exactly what we want.

Once you’ve set up all your tracks (one through six), you can add this export to the Render Queue, and you’re all set to export both your video and audio for DCP creation.

That’s it!  Your work in Resolve 14 is done, but before we wrap up, there is something that’s important for me to point out. Assuming that you’re not using a DCP export option in an application like Media Encoder, Premiere or even Compressor (for all you FCPX editors out there), you are going to need to use an intermediary application like R14 to do your conversion to not only JPEG2000, but also to XYZ color space.  To be honest, Resolve is my go to application for doing this, and I use it on every DCP project that I create.  If you’re not familiar with working with Resolve, or this write up seems a little complex, there is a way to do this technique inside of Adobe’s After Effects, which we’re going to talk about in an upcoming article.  For that technique, a third party plug-in is required.  It’s old, but it’s free and works in both After Effects and in Photoshop as well.

And last, but certainly not least, I’ve been getting a lot of people commenting on these articles in regards to what I’ve been saying about taking your DCP to a reputable post facility to check your DCP, and many people have been posting (and sending me e-mails directly), telling me that that is not necessary, and you can just check it on a computer, and you’re good to go.  Please, don’t do that.  The whole point of taking it to a facility to check it is to make sure that, not only does it work, but so you can sit down, and watch it to make sure that it looks and sounds exactly the way that you expect it to look and sound.  You want to experience your project, like the audience will experience it.  Taking it to a facility will get you that, plus let you check to make sure that the DCP ingests into a playback machine properly, so you have piece of mind know that when that DCP is sent out to theatres, it will playback exactly the way you expect it to.  In our next article, I’m going to walk through the process for the last of the big NLE’s, and that is FCPX, so look for that article in the coming weeks!

The post CREATING YOUR OWN DCP’S – DAVINCI RESOLVE 14 SETUP appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: CREATING YOUR OWN DCP’S – DAVINCI RESOLVE 14 SETUP

[porchenclose10019]

Everything Sony Told Us About the Future of PlayStation

Pull your gaze from Nintendo’s bedazzling Switch for a moment and consider Sony’s now widespread PlayStation 4. Console sales have in general outperformed the most buoyant analyst and pundit prognostications. Not merely because of Nintendo’s overnight dark horse, or its scarce as hen’s teeth NES Classic. Sony’s PlayStation 4 is having some belt-notching moments of its own.

Sony now says its flagship games platform has sold-through—meaning to buyers and not just stores—close to 60 million units worldwide since its launch in November 2013. That, according to Sony global game development boss Shawn Layden, is the fastest pace set by any PlayStation, life-to-date, including the all-time industry record holder PlayStation 2.

“As you’ll recall, last year we performed the daredevil stunt of launching three new pieces of hardware in 60 days. Probably won’t do that again,” quips Layden during a sit-down with TIME. He’s talking about the $399 PlayStation 4 Pro (a souped up PlayStation 4 that outputs way snazzier graphics), PlayStation VR (a $399 virtual reality headset that couples with the PlayStation 4 for wraparound alt-reality experiences) and a slimmer, sleeker $299 version of the baseline PlayStation 4. All three arrived last fall, and Sony says sales have been booming.

PlayStation VR now boasts more than one million units sold worldwide, up from about 900,000 in February 2017. According to Sony, it’s been sold out from day one. “We don’t see it as a fad, it’s a brand new medium, not only for gaming entertainment, but non-gaming entertainment,” says Layden. And of every five PlayStation 4s Sony sells, Layden says one is a PlayStation 4 Pro, a laudable achievement given its $100 price premium, enthusiast target demographic and the nascency of the 4K television market (where it’s real allure lies).

“It is way ahead of our expectations,” adds Sony global sales chief Jim Ryan. “As with PSVR, and I suppose in forecasting these things we haven’t done a very good job, the product is in desperately short supply. So that’s one-in-five under severe constraint.”

“All of the rumors of the demise of the console are very much premature,” says Layden. “In fact if you’re watching [sales tracker] NPD for PS4 and Xbox One sales, you put those together and console gaming has never been as big and vibrant as it is right now. And that’s just here in the States.” Zip across the pond, and the story tilts further in Sony’s favor. “It’s been pleasing that in North America, we’ve been 2-to-1 against Xbox,” says Ryan. “But in Europe, it’s really been fortress PlayStation by at least 3-to-1 in unit sales.”

“It’s also the breadth of type of games,” he continues. “And once you get up in the heady heights of 100 million units, you’re talking of a different audience altogether, where having this range of stuff like Detroit: Become Human and FIFA and Call of Duty and Star Wars, it makes the job a whole lot easier.”

Layden says the Japanese publishers are also coming back, listing off recent games like Resident Evil 7, Nioh, Nier: Automata, Persona 5 and Final Fantasy XV as examples. “That’s super important for us,” he says. “I think a lot of Japanese developers lost their way chasing the mobile games yen, if you will, but they’re coming back to console in a major way. And speaking of, we’ll have some big announcements at E3 in that precise vein.”

This notion of mid-console refreshes—an enthusiast-angled limbering act you could argue Nintendo pioneered with its perennial Game Boy, DS and 3DS revamps—has a flip side. The PS4 Pro’s power has been effectively slaved to the baseline PlayStation 4. Games on the PS4 Pro, while graphically sharper and lusher, must be functionally identical to the experience as had on the standard model. It’s a leave-no-consumer-behind mentality that’s so far been echoed by the competition: Microsoft’s revved up PS4 Pro rival, codenamed Project Scorpio and due later this year, will likewise observe gameplay parity with the Xbox One.

“Because the games need to play on both Pro and standard PS4, there can’t be a radical departure between the two experiences,” says Layden. “But I think we’ve hit a happy medium by enriching the visual experience, and developers enjoy having that extra oomph while knowing they’re making games that play well on all 60 million PlayStation 4s. I guess we’re trying to have our cake and eat it too.”

Would Sony back away from that requirement if sales leveled off down the line? “Today, my answer is that we’re going to stay the course,” says Layden. “There’s still a lot of juice to squeeze out of the PlayStation 4 platform, full stop. So ensuring PlayStation 4 games play on both consoles is our winning formula right now.”

Another winning-so-far formula few saw coming is Nintendo’s notion of a games console you can play anywhere you like, shifting from your hands to your TV in seconds. In 2005, Sony began its own foray into handheld gaming with a device it dubbed the PlayStation Portable. The PSP sold in excess of 80 million units, and in 2012, a followup dubbed the PS Vita arrived—a contemporaneously mighty mobile, but one that sold a fraction as many units. In light of what Nintendo seems to be illustrating, that there is appetite for a consumer device that preserves the higher-end console experience on the go, would Sony ever revisit a once formidable bailiwick?

Layden calls the Switch “a great success for Nintendo” and admits that “it’s definitely what that fanbase has been waiting for.” But he sees the system as less a rival than a complementary traveler, claiming that Switch sales have had no discernible impact on the sell-through for PlayStation 4. “When you look at our numbers, I think it shows that a lot of gamers are a two-console family,” he adds. “And quite often those two consoles are PlayStation and Nintendo sitting side-by-side.”

Layden says Sony still views the Vita as a viable development platform: Though new Western releases have slowed to a trickle, he notes games are still being made for it in Japan. But for now, a Vita successor isn’t in the cards. “To be honest, the Vita just didn’t reach critical mass in the U.S. or Western Europe,” he says. “I don’t know if it was that it was more technology people had to carry around, or more things to charge, or whether their phone or tablet were taking care of that. But once the content slowed in that pipeline, it became hard to keep the Vita as a going concern.”

Another concern occasionally raised by PlayStation devotees involves the company’s once-ubiquitous PlayStation 2. While Sony has in recent years devoted resources to bringing a handful of popular older titles to the PlayStation 4, the better part of that library is lost to time. For now, it seems that’s where it’ll remain. “When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much,” says Ryan. “That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?”

By contrast, the company says it intends to double down on things people do want to play, namely the explosive eSports phenomenon. “It’s a subject that is occupying us quite a lot these days, and something we’re looking at very carefully,” says Ryan. “We’re trying to find precisely what the role of the platform holder is in that value chain. Seeing how we can actually make the whole eSports thing bigger, better, different and bespoke to PlayStation is something you’re going to be hearing quite a lot about in the next year or two.”

Speaking of broadening its messaging to a growing competitive elite, Sony says it’s aware some have made noises about a boutique version of the company’s acclaimed DualShock 4 controller in the vein of Microsoft’s own Xbox One Elite gamepad. “The idea of a premium interface in exactly the same manner as we now have a premium console has a lot of logic to it, and there are such products already available in the market from third parties,” says Ryan. “But it’s definitely something we continue to look at.”

To questions about where other technologies like PlayStation VR go from here, Layden stresses virtual reality’s non-gaming possibilities. “We have Hollywood luminaries and TV show runners, places like the Smithsonian and [NASA’s] Jet Propulsion Laboratory looking into what the technology can do for them. And recently you may have seen Vince Gilligan, the show runner for Breaking Bad, has leaked some information that we’re working together, which we are, in bringing a Breaking Bad experience to virtual reality.” What exactly is that going to be? “I have no idea, but Vince has shown that he can deliver,” says Layden.

Sony doubtless intends to push its phase one VR ideas as far as the market will bear, but the pressure to iterate is fierce. “Technology cycles are shortening, and there’s no reason to expect VR to be any exception to that,” says Ryan. “If we have aspirations to take this into a mass market space, clearly things will need to happen to the form factor, whether it’s wireless or a lighter headset or all of these things.”

“The key is advancing the technology without stepping off the platform,” adds Layden. “We want to make sure we have a target platform developers can grow against. We’ll find ways to bump it up, whether that’s through the physical design of the product, which needs tweaks, of course, as everything does. But we also want to make sure we’re firmly grounded in PlayStation 4, so people don’t think they need something else to drive the experience.”

As for the experience awaiting PlayStation buffs when the curtain lifts on Sony’s E3 media event, live streaming from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall (online as well as in select theaters) next Monday, June 12, Layden says to think of it less as a press conference than a software showcase.

“The crowd will only have to suffer I think in aggregate 90 seconds of me,” he jokes. “And in the middle will be all the games.”

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qQ1GhC

[repwincoml4a0a5]

Everything Sony Told Us About the Future of PlayStation

Pull your gaze from Nintendo’s bedazzling Switch for a moment and consider Sony’s now widespread PlayStation 4. Console sales have in general outperformed the most buoyant analyst and pundit prognostications. Not merely because of Nintendo’s overnight dark horse, or its scarce as hen’s teeth NES Classic. Sony’s PlayStation 4 is having some belt-notching moments of its own.

Sony now says its flagship games platform has sold-through—meaning to buyers and not just stores—close to 60 million units worldwide since its launch in November 2013. That, according to Sony global game development boss Shawn Layden, is the fastest pace set by any PlayStation, life-to-date, including the all-time industry record holder PlayStation 2.

“As you’ll recall, last year we performed the daredevil stunt of launching three new pieces of hardware in 60 days. Probably won’t do that again,” quips Layden during a sit-down with TIME. He’s talking about the $399 PlayStation 4 Pro (a souped up PlayStation 4 that outputs way snazzier graphics), PlayStation VR (a $399 virtual reality headset that couples with the PlayStation 4 for wraparound alt-reality experiences) and a slimmer, sleeker $299 version of the baseline PlayStation 4. All three arrived last fall, and Sony says sales have been booming.

PlayStation VR now boasts more than one million units sold worldwide, up from about 900,000 in February 2017. According to Sony, it’s been sold out from day one. “We don’t see it as a fad, it’s a brand new medium, not only for gaming entertainment, but non-gaming entertainment,” says Layden. And of every five PlayStation 4s Sony sells, Layden says one is a PlayStation 4 Pro, a laudable achievement given its $100 price premium, enthusiast target demographic and the nascency of the 4K television market (where it’s real allure lies).

“It is way ahead of our expectations,” adds Sony global sales chief Jim Ryan. “As with PSVR, and I suppose in forecasting these things we haven’t done a very good job, the product is in desperately short supply. So that’s one-in-five under severe constraint.”

“All of the rumors of the demise of the console are very much premature,” says Layden. “In fact if you’re watching [sales tracker] NPD for PS4 and Xbox One sales, you put those together and console gaming has never been as big and vibrant as it is right now. And that’s just here in the States.” Zip across the pond, and the story tilts further in Sony’s favor. “It’s been pleasing that in North America, we’ve been 2-to-1 against Xbox,” says Ryan. “But in Europe, it’s really been fortress PlayStation by at least 3-to-1 in unit sales.”

“It’s also the breadth of type of games,” he continues. “And once you get up in the heady heights of 100 million units, you’re talking of a different audience altogether, where having this range of stuff like Detroit: Become Human and FIFA and Call of Duty and Star Wars, it makes the job a whole lot easier.”

Layden says the Japanese publishers are also coming back, listing off recent games like Resident Evil 7, Nioh, Nier: Automata, Persona 5 and Final Fantasy XV as examples. “That’s super important for us,” he says. “I think a lot of Japanese developers lost their way chasing the mobile games yen, if you will, but they’re coming back to console in a major way. And speaking of, we’ll have some big announcements at E3 in that precise vein.”

This notion of mid-console refreshes—an enthusiast-angled limbering act you could argue Nintendo pioneered with its perennial Game Boy, DS and 3DS revamps—has a flip side. The PS4 Pro’s power has been effectively slaved to the baseline PlayStation 4. Games on the PS4 Pro, while graphically sharper and lusher, must be functionally identical to the experience as had on the standard model. It’s a leave-no-consumer-behind mentality that’s so far been echoed by the competition: Microsoft’s revved up PS4 Pro rival, codenamed Project Scorpio and due later this year, will likewise observe gameplay parity with the Xbox One.

“Because the games need to play on both Pro and standard PS4, there can’t be a radical departure between the two experiences,” says Layden. “But I think we’ve hit a happy medium by enriching the visual experience, and developers enjoy having that extra oomph while knowing they’re making games that play well on all 60 million PlayStation 4s. I guess we’re trying to have our cake and eat it too.”

Would Sony back away from that requirement if sales leveled off down the line? “Today, my answer is that we’re going to stay the course,” says Layden. “There’s still a lot of juice to squeeze out of the PlayStation 4 platform, full stop. So ensuring PlayStation 4 games play on both consoles is our winning formula right now.”

Another winning-so-far formula few saw coming is Nintendo’s notion of a games console you can play anywhere you like, shifting from your hands to your TV in seconds. In 2005, Sony began its own foray into handheld gaming with a device it dubbed the PlayStation Portable. The PSP sold in excess of 80 million units, and in 2012, a followup dubbed the PS Vita arrived—a contemporaneously mighty mobile, but one that sold a fraction as many units. In light of what Nintendo seems to be illustrating, that there is appetite for a consumer device that preserves the higher-end console experience on the go, would Sony ever revisit a once formidable bailiwick?

Layden calls the Switch “a great success for Nintendo” and admits that “it’s definitely what that fanbase has been waiting for.” But he sees the system as less a rival than a complementary traveler, claiming that Switch sales have had no discernible impact on the sell-through for PlayStation 4. “When you look at our numbers, I think it shows that a lot of gamers are a two-console family,” he adds. “And quite often those two consoles are PlayStation and Nintendo sitting side-by-side.”

Layden says Sony still views the Vita as a viable development platform: Though new Western releases have slowed to a trickle, he notes games are still being made for it in Japan. But for now, a Vita successor isn’t in the cards. “To be honest, the Vita just didn’t reach critical mass in the U.S. or Western Europe,” he says. “I don’t know if it was that it was more technology people had to carry around, or more things to charge, or whether their phone or tablet were taking care of that. But once the content slowed in that pipeline, it became hard to keep the Vita as a going concern.”

Another concern occasionally raised by PlayStation devotees involves the company’s once-ubiquitous PlayStation 2. While Sony has in recent years devoted resources to bringing a handful of popular older titles to the PlayStation 4, the better part of that library is lost to time. For now, it seems that’s where it’ll remain. “When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much,” says Ryan. “That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?”

By contrast, the company says it intends to double down on things people do want to play, namely the explosive eSports phenomenon. “It’s a subject that is occupying us quite a lot these days, and something we’re looking at very carefully,” says Ryan. “We’re trying to find precisely what the role of the platform holder is in that value chain. Seeing how we can actually make the whole eSports thing bigger, better, different and bespoke to PlayStation is something you’re going to be hearing quite a lot about in the next year or two.”

Speaking of broadening its messaging to a growing competitive elite, Sony says it’s aware some have made noises about a boutique version of the company’s acclaimed DualShock 4 controller in the vein of Microsoft’s own Xbox One Elite gamepad. “The idea of a premium interface in exactly the same manner as we now have a premium console has a lot of logic to it, and there are such products already available in the market from third parties,” says Ryan. “But it’s definitely something we continue to look at.”

To questions about where other technologies like PlayStation VR go from here, Layden stresses virtual reality’s non-gaming possibilities. “We have Hollywood luminaries and TV show runners, places like the Smithsonian and [NASA’s] Jet Propulsion Laboratory looking into what the technology can do for them. And recently you may have seen Vince Gilligan, the show runner for Breaking Bad, has leaked some information that we’re working together, which we are, in bringing a Breaking Bad experience to virtual reality.” What exactly is that going to be? “I have no idea, but Vince has shown that he can deliver,” says Layden.

Sony doubtless intends to push its phase one VR ideas as far as the market will bear, but the pressure to iterate is fierce. “Technology cycles are shortening, and there’s no reason to expect VR to be any exception to that,” says Ryan. “If we have aspirations to take this into a mass market space, clearly things will need to happen to the form factor, whether it’s wireless or a lighter headset or all of these things.”

“The key is advancing the technology without stepping off the platform,” adds Layden. “We want to make sure we have a target platform developers can grow against. We’ll find ways to bump it up, whether that’s through the physical design of the product, which needs tweaks, of course, as everything does. But we also want to make sure we’re firmly grounded in PlayStation 4, so people don’t think they need something else to drive the experience.”

As for the experience awaiting PlayStation buffs when the curtain lifts on Sony’s E3 media event, live streaming from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall (online as well as in select theaters) next Monday, June 12, Layden says to think of it less as a press conference than a software showcase.

“The crowd will only have to suffer I think in aggregate 90 seconds of me,” he jokes. “And in the middle will be all the games.”

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qQ1GhC

[kristablogs]

These volunteers are filling in missing pieces of the world map, and helping humanity at the same time

Greenland glacier; 29 April 2019. <br> Today, more than 700 orbiting objects watch Earth all the time, some continually producing images. (European Space Agency/)

The snow hasn’t started yet this October evening in Boulder, Colorado, but the sharp wind and low clouds around Backcountry Pizza & Tap House foretell an early winter storm. Just before 6 p.m., Diane Fritz comes in from the cold, passing pinball machines and pool tables on her way to the back room. Setting down her bag, she takes off her down jacket and quickly orders an IPA before happy hour ends. “Lots of people probably won’t make it,” she says, guessing they’ll be reluctant to brave frozen roads. She shrugs and pulls out her Mac bearing a sticker that reads: “Map Porn.”

Fritz works for Auraria Library in Denver, assisting people who want to incorporate spatial information into their research. If a student were doing a project about energy, for example, she’d show them how to include the location of every oil well in the state. Outside of her job, Fritz also helps lead a MeetUp group—gathering here tonight—that’s merging data about buildings into a crowdsourced map of the area. The project could eventually help emergency services reach people more rapidly, make small businesses more visible, and show residents how their city (one of the fastest growing in the nation) is changing. About 40 people have volunteered so far.

Fritz flips open her laptop to find the how-to presentation she’ll give to any newcomers who venture in. For now, though, her only audience hangs above her: beer signs scattered around the room.

As her computer powers up, the other MeetUp leader, data scientist Margaret Spyker, arrives with member Jim McAndrew, who moved to Pennsylvania and is back for a visit. “If you order quick, you’ll make happy hour,” Fritz urges them.

Spyker grabs a menu from the table, the pair orders with just two minutes to spare, and the triad begins chatting. “Jimmy’s already checked in here on Foursquare,” Spyker says.

McAndrew smiles and shrugs: guilty. Speaking of, Fritz remembers, she’s been meaning to compliment him on a recent sprint on the fitness app Strava, where he tracks his impressively fast runs.

They pause and laugh at their predictability. Even their small talk is geospatial—all about things related to place and time—exactly as you’d expect from people who build maps in their spare hours.

Tonight, they hope to make progress on the so-called Denver Building Import. They’ll overlay shapes, sizes, and addresses from a government database onto a crowdsourced, free map of the world, and merge the two so that the structures become a permanent feature of the digital geography.

The project is part of an international effort called OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004. A cartographic Wikipedia, OSM relies on volunteers—a million since its start, making it the largest such endeavor—to create an ever-evolving representation of the planet. You can view it in a browser or within a platform like Facebook, which relies on it for location information. And although individuals work on it just for fun, it underpins services at huge companies like Amazon and Microsoft. OSM is important and different from maps like Google’s because it’s made by and for the people. It contains information its participants want—not, as McAndrew puts it, “what will make Google Maps money.”

Southern Mongolia; August 15, 2015. <br> The data from satellites sent up by government agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency is often public. (European Space Agency/)

All over, nerdy normals are using mappy data for specific pursuits: Archaeologists have uncovered hidden tombs; police have found missing people; relief organizations have dispatched aid to flood victims; retired spies have located weapons caches; conservationists have detected deforestation; artists have pinpointed secret military installations; and retailers have gauged vacancies in competitors’ parking lots.

A policy adviser and analyst named Josef Koller believes this plethora of frequently updated information might lead to a tipping point he dubs the Geoint Singularity: a time when people with no particular expertise or wealth have access to geospatial data and its interpretation in real time, providing the power to investigate any place as it is right now. In effect, anyone could find a live view of whatever spot on the planet they wanted to see. “The world basically becomes transparent,” says Koller, a systems director at the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research and development center in Southern California.

Koller has been monitoring the space industry since around 2015, taking note as satellites became easier and cheaper to build and launch. Today, more than 700 orbiting objects watch Earth all the time, up from 192 in 2014. That growth means that some continuously produce images, showing your house not as it looked in 2016 but as it looks while you read this. He has also seen artificial intelligence getting smarter. It can, using finely tuned algorithms, count cars and identify cats or your cousin. Finally, he’s seen that with phones and fast networks, people can stream such analyses. Take that to its logical endpoint, and—voilà!—a Geoint Singularity.

We’re not there yet, but we’re well on our way: Satellites capture images of a given sea or skyscraper daily. AI is good at narrow, specific tasks, like recognizing trees or gauging traffic, but integrating different streams—aerial pictures, CCTV feeds, Twitter threads, addresses, current trash-truck locations—remains a wicked problem. Given all that, no one can say if this singularity will come, or how, exactly, regular earthlings’ experiences would change if it did. Maybe people will watch the ice caps melt minute by minute. Maybe they will fact-check municipal claims about building new housing, or whether foreign ships are docking nearby. Maybe they will know, at all times, the best open parking space in the whole city. Or maybe they won’t care very much at all, and mapping skills will remain important but niche, deployed mostly by intelligence agencies, humanitarian groups, and corporations.

At Backcountry, the OpenStreetMap volunteers represent a future in which people do care. They want to know all about their place on the globe. McAndrew pulls up a video on his computer and puts it on loop to set the mood. A dark globe appears on the screen. Bright dots and lines flash across its surface in a DayGlo seizure, tracing countries and cities and the spaces between. It’s an atlas of Earth, drawn chronologically as people add roads, houses, and schools. Other crowdsourced projects serve specific niches; StoryMap lets users highlight the locations in a series of events; Ushahidi helps people share information about things like police encounters. But OpenStreetMap has the broadest ambitions: to capture the entire, always changing planet, and whatever people in each place care about.

McAndrew says, “Every line you see is an edit”—a place now on the map, now truer to the real world.

Northwest Algeria; January 2018. <br> Around the world people have been inspired by satellite imagery. Teachers send kids on global scavenger hunts. (European Space Agency/)

Koller named the Geoint Singularity the way you might name an unbuilt city for which you hadn’t drawn blueprints yet. While the future it represents still seems far off, the technology to achieve it has been developing for decades. The US government launched its first picture-taking satellites in the 1960s, and followed with ones dedicated to military and intelligence needs. Entities like NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the United States Geological Survey sent up craft for scientific use. Their data is largely public, giving access to decades-old records that anyone can compare with today’s.

In the 1990s, business joined in, largely so it could sell pictures to spooky agencies. WorldView Imaging Corporation, now called Maxar, deployed the first privately owned cameras to peer down at Earth. Today the company also sells data to oil and gas companies to monitor pipelines, to mega-retailers to keep an eye on store traffic, and to developers to survey potential construction zones.

In the meantime, a virtual panopticon has emerged, one that no longer just takes pictures. Satellites also nab radio transmissions, weather information, infrared images, and radar data. Drones overfly the planet, street cameras keep watch closer to the ground, smart devices broadcast locations, and governmental datasets—from curb cuts to county lines—live online. With each uptick in detail, the singularity draws closer.

It can only happen, though, if data reaches the public—not exactly the strong suit of private companies. Still, they do sometimes share. Maxar, for instance, ran the first major effort to involve laypeople in image analysis and mapmaking. Called Tomnod, the nine-year program enlisted amateurs during disasters, like the Malaysia Airlines crash in 2014, or for scientific research, such as counting Weddell seals in Antarctica for a 2016 census. During crises, Maxar also makes imagery available to groups like Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, which sponsors crowdsourced efforts to plot crisis-plagued regions—say, after earthquakes, or to chart vaccine distribution, or understand refugee migration.

Companies also occasionally give their data to scientists who are studying climate change, journalists reporting on hard-to-reach places, and analysts trying to suss out global tensions. One of those is David Schmerler, who researches nuclear-weapon and missile developments at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California.

Schmerler doesn’t really have formal training in satellite-image analysis, but with his morning coffee in hand, he logs on to the website of a company called Planet, which operates around 140 satellites that take pictures of all the land on Earth every day. Some groups use the data to track deforestation, or calculate how many cargo ships reached a given port on Tuesday. But, as the caffeine hits, Schmerler zooms in on a few sites in North Korea. “If I see a lot of road activity, or if a building blows up, or they changed the roof, something is happening there,” he says. In the old days, you would learn of such things only days or months later, when an overscheduled satellite got around to taking a look. Today, you can see it today.

Schmerler sees all this geospatial data as a path to truth in a twisty world. “You can verify all sorts of claims using satellite imagery,” he points out. And when he says “you,” he means it. “When someone says something is changing in the world, we don’t have to rely on that statement. If someone says the ice caps are melting, you can log on and see that happen.”

Colorado is a geospatial hub of sorts: It’s home to Maxar, NOAA offices, and a cluster of younger satellite startups, all of them full of people whose geo-knowledge base is generally better than average. Geospatial Amateurs, based in the Denver metro area, is another MeetUp that believes in the personal utility of all this data. “Amateurs” is a cheeky name. Many members, some of whom are also part of OSM, work in fields at least somewhat related to mapping or Earth observation, like environmental science or transportation. They don’t want sponsorships or corporate meddling or professional influence. Instead, the group wants to foster what leader Brian Timoney calls “roll your own” projects. It’s DIY, but with images, sensor readings, and maps instead of needle, thread, and aida cloth. “The idea,” he says, “is you can answer geospatial questions that impact your everyday life.”

To keep the club more approachable, Timoney—a data analyst who runs a consulting firm—has tried to create a low-key vibe, starting with the MeetUp descriptions themselves. Take the invitation to the August 2019 gathering: A scientist demonstrates how to use radar and laser data to calculate snow depths on whatever black-or-blue slopes the attendees personally care about. “After this presentation, you’ll be looking around your ski mountain with a subtler eye,” read the website, “while the basic chads clogging I-70 will still be taking a resort’s mid-mountain snowpack-depth reading at face value.”

At other meetings, members show-and-tell their homebrewed solutions, which use municipal datasets, open-source information from agencies like NOAA, and legal hacks of companies like the Car2Go rental service. An actual Chad made a pedestrian map of sidewalks in the Denver area. Member Adam Bickford helped a city-council candidate optimize canvassing routes. And Ricardo Oliveira took the real-time feed of bus locations and created his own display. (Those examples happened before big political campaigns and organizations built their own versions.) “We want to get the word out about the rich variety of datasets that are available,” Timoney says, “and inspire people.”

Around the world, people have been inspired, particularly by satellite imagery. Teachers send kids on global scavenger hunts. Homebodies see places they might never visit, guided by websites like Google Sightseeing (not affiliated with Google but rather with two guys). Farmers figuring out where their corn should go overlay snaps with Google Earth satellite maps. Hikers pore over them to find unmarked trails. Hunters consult them to predict where the animals will be.

If the singularity arrives, those pursuits, though, will look different: Second graders and skilled alpinists will be aware of the planet as it is—not as it was last week, last month, or last year. What if you could watch the travels of a specific herd of elk every day? What if you could tell how crowded your tourist destination was an hour ago? What if day-trippers could peep the percentage of fall-turned leaves before they set out on the road?

Bolovian Salt Flats; May 2017. <br> DIY groups hope the availability of satellite data will lead to more localized mapping projects. (European Space Agency/)

At Backcountry Pizza, meanwhile, the mappers finally have a new arrival, someone who has never worked on this project before: Travis Burt, a developer with utility company Franklin Energy. Burt immediately pulls out his laptop to learn how to begin merging Denver building data with the OpenStreetMap grid.

While Spyker and McAndrew chat in the corner, group leader Fritz tells Burt how to register so that he can see data from the Denver Regional Council of Governments—which, according to Fritz, “we lovingly call Dr. Cog.” Every two years, Dr. Cog pays to fly picture-taking planes over the metro area. Analysts then use that imagery to trace the boundaries of buildings, accurate to around 3 inches. While all of the information is public and free, it’s not especially layperson-friendly. But once it’s in OpenStreetMap, it won’t be much harder for anyone to access and understand than Google Maps.

Pinning numbers to virtual buildings is as important as the shapes and spots on the ground. “We don’t actually know, even in our super-urban area, what the addresses are,” Spyker says. That’s a problem for 911 operators, who can’t send responders to a location if they don’t know exactly where it is. Because the Denver area is changing so rapidly, the mappers hope to keep updating the buildings, creating a historical record—a sort of pencil-mark-on-the-doorjamb growth chart—of how the city becomes what it will be. In the OSM, you can check out the archive of edits just like you can on Wikipedia.

Denver, of course, isn’t the only city lacking user-friendly data, and the problem is even more acute in rural and developing areas. Across the world, more than 150 OpenStreetMap chapters are helping to make their regions visible, tracking an ever-shifting landscape of roads and borders.

Coloring in the map can also just be fun. Spyker and Fritz are creating a city art directory, and soon they’ll be able to peg graffiti and murals to the walls of specific structures. Green thumbs could one day calculate how many hours of sunshine their building-shadowed urban gardens will get. A bookstore owner could estimate how many people will walk by their window display.

Under Fritz’s helpful tutelage, Burt finally gets to the point of actually working. He stares mirror-eyed at the map, all of its layers shining from his screen, waiting for him to paint on another. “Ah,” he says, “this looks beautiful.”

“Did you hear that?” Fritz asks Spyker, who’s pulling up a site she made to help people plan pub crawls on bikes. “He said it was beautiful.”

The MeetUp group at Backcountry Pizza tonight represents the vanguard of the Geoint Singularity. But it’s also fair to ask if a tipping point is something the average person wants, needs, or will ever care about. Consider, for instance, that most folks are content with spinning through Google Earth, where the images are usually a couple of years old. “That satisfies most people’s basic curiosity,” says Geospatial Amateurs’ Timoney.

The phenomenon’s godfather, Koller, notes that the singularity really requires a useful idea, one that cheaply and easily integrates real-time data and analysis, probably through a smartphone or browser interface. The glut of information is too much for our puny brains to parse quickly, which means we’ll also need AI to get smarter than it is now, and have the particular kind of savvy to serve up what people actually want. “The key point will be to find that killer application,” he says, a reason that an all-seeing eye on Earth would make the everyday easier or more efficient. “I don’t think anybody has really identified that yet.”

This wouldn’t be the first time we couldn’t clearly see the future. “If someone had asked me some question in 1980 about GPS, I’d be like, ‘I don’t know if it’s useful to see where you are,’” says Georgia Tech’s Mariel Borowitz, author of Open Space: The Global Effort for Open Access to Environmental Satellite Data. But here we are, with Tinder and Yelp and our general inability to navigate without a robot voice in our ear, because of GPS and our smartphones’ ability to put them in our palms.

Borowitz has questions, though, about how privacy protections will evolve. “I can imagine when you have ubiquitous data, your ability to track individuals or specific individual movements increases,” she says. The rub for watching the whole world change is that you are part of that world.

And not every “you” will get access to that change. “What I think stands in the way of closing the digital divide is the growing trend of the rich versus the poor,” Koller says. When only the wealthy can reach the bounty, they also control how information gets collected, used, and interpreted.

That’s why self-rolled initiatives aim to put power in more hands. Like, for example, the hands of people currently PayPaling their share of the pizza bill to Fritz. Only one of them—Burt—has mapped anything tonight. But that’s fine. As much as this group is about geospatial data, it’s also about connecting a community, and forging bright lines between them.

McAndrew tilts his eyes toward the window. The storm has fully arrived. He stares for a second before pulling out his phone and punching up a real-time traffic display. “You can tell where the snow’s the worst,” he says, flashing his screen toward us. Green segments, where cars are flowing, slam into red ones, where drivers have slowed, flakes undoubtedly hypnotic in their headlights.

When we step outside, our eyes confirm the situation: The snow has begun to stick. It piles up on cars and blades of grass. It reveals the outlines of everything, showing our footprints as we walk away from each other, past buildings yet to be imported.

This story appears in the Spring 2020, Origins issue of Popular Science.