While mobile data is great for smartphones, the thing that really gets me excited about pervasive data is the ability to do things you wouldn’t expect like, say, live stream the birth of a bear in a Minnesota cave.
The Verizon 3G network will power the live stream of the bear birth and it seems like a pretty cool setup.
PixController, Inc. designed, manufactured, and installed a custom camera system for this project. The bear den location is in a very remote area without power or Internet access. The camera system they designed is battery powered and solar charged, and the video is being streamed to the Internet via wireless 3G cellular link. The Cellular 3G hardware and data plan are being provided by Verizon Wireless.
There are 2 cameras connected to the system. One camera is a small camera that is placed inside the bear den. This is a day color/night infrared (IR) camera which can see in complete darkness. The second camera is installed outside the den and is a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera, which will be used to watch and follow the bears if they come out of the den site.
Only one camera will be streaming at a time, and these cameras can be selected and remotely controlled by members of the Bear Center or PixController, Inc. Engineers. The camera system is also equipped with custom electronics which will monitor the systems battery supply. Daily emails are sent to the engineers with systems status information in order that we can keep the stream running smoothly throughout the project.
The Verizon 3G and the upcoming 4G networks and embedded data chips are really going to open up possibilities that weren’t possible a few years ago. To watch the bear birth happen live, check out this website.