Marine scientists have found a new use for Twitter.
David Fries worked with a team of marine scientists at the University of South Florida to create two subs called Tavros (The AutonomousVehicle and Remotely-Operated Sensing) that tweet back information from the Gulf of Mexico.
The solar-powered Tavros vehicle can independently analyze water samples, compile the data and then convert that information into a message available to all who follow them on Twitter.
Fries’ team has built a series of the vehicles, but for now just one is in the water busily Tweeting. You can follow it at @Tavros02 on Twitter.
“This is a really exciting area of machine intelligence,” Fries said. “We were interested in getting machines taking in data and – like humans have processed that data in the past – Tweeting it back to us intelligently. We wanted to figure out how we could have them objectively communicate data without human input and using Twitter linked to artificial intelligent programs allows us to do that and distribute to a large user group.”
The marine researchers next hope to convert the subs’ tweets into plain-language statements about fishing or beach conditions to the public.
If you want to follow the subs tweets, you can add them at @Tavros01 and @Tavros02
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