Monthly Archives: April 2015

Too Big to Store

Mapping

I’ve done the math on how much storage would be required to store the entire planet, in 3D, in one centimetre cubes. Reaching 1km in height, to allow for the tallest buildings and basements, and giving each pixel 64 bits to describe it, would equal a massive amount of data.

All of Google’s data centres combined currently hold 10 million terabytes. MapMerge would require 400 million times more than that, if every pixel was to hold unique information.

Even if only urban areas were mapped (1% of the planet), and only to a height of 5 metres, we would still need 6500 times Google’s current storage capacity.

So the answer will be something akin to level mapping in 3D video games.

Telepresence: Samsung NX Rover

Telepresence

I just saw the Samsung NX Rover featured on the UK TV show Gadget Man (the Staycation episode), and it is similar to what I have envisioned for the future of telepresence robots. The main differences are that I would like the face/avatar face of the operator to appear where the head of the robot would be. And I am unsure if the flexibility of the camera needs to be so advanced – rotating and up/down should suffice. Anyway, great to see, and I can imagine this product being commercially available at some stage.

As far as I can tell, there must be people on location remotely steering the robot, and carrying it where its wheels won’t take it. If it can do stairs, I’d be mightily impressed.

While it is a long way from the perfect telepresence robot – which would be best controlled via a VR system – the existence and promotion of this device indicates to me that remote travel is something desirable. On Gadget Man, they were enjoying the view through an iPad, even though they were at the location in person…