Android In Space!

Here at Google, we’re all about exploration. It’s no surprise that some of our favorite products are built to let you explore the world in ways never before possible. Google Maps lets you find your way all around the world. Google Earth lets you explore the planet in detail, complete with trees and oceans. And Google Sky Map lets you explore the skies right from your Android device. Well, we wanted to do a little exploring of our own, so we decided to venture into near space, with the help of some Androids.

Recently, we travelled to Ione, CA and sent seven payloads up, up, and away into near space, each equipped with a Nexus S. We took some cues from others who have sent homemade weather balloon rigs far up, and we wanted an opportunity to collect some interesting data about the sensors in Nexus S – GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer. We also couldn’t resist what looked like a great way to spend a weekend. Sending the balloons up also gave us an opportunity to capture some stunning imagery and videos of Earth. Take a look at unaltered footage of an Android at over 100,000 ft above the Earth’s surface:

The Rig
How did we get our little Android commanders that high up? Well, first the Android platform provides a robust development environment and Nexus S has a great set of embedded sensors, both of which made it easy for us to write the apps we needed for this project. Going forward with other similar projects we have an open environment that we can modify at any level necessary. We then worked with UCSC student Greg Klein to prepare each of the payloads, which were housed in foam coolers. We secured a nylon load line to the cooler and attached to it a radar reflector, a parachute, and finally, a weather balloon. Every payload had an APRS transmitter attached to a GPS that was known to work at high altitudes, as well as batteries for power. The remainder of each payload was different for each balloon: some had digital cameras taking pictures and some had video cameras mounted at various angles (up, down, and at the horizon).

These phones were running a variety of apps: Google Maps for Mobile 5.0 (with offline map data) which allowed us to see what was directly below the balloon, Google Sky Map to see if we could identify the real stars in the backdrop, Latitude to report location when the phones had a data connection, and our own custom sensor logging app that sampled all the available sensors on the device. We even manned our payloads with some special astronauts: small Android robots, and boy did they fly. Check out an in-depth look at how we prepared and launched the payloads:

What We Found
The payloads collected a lot of data, and many reached high altitudes, with the highest topping out at 107,375 ft., over 20 miles high, or over three times the height of an average commercial jet. We also clocked one of the payloads at 139 mph at its fastest.

In tracking the sensors on each of the phones, we observed that the GPS in Nexus S could function up to altitudes of about 60,000 ft. and would actually start working again on the balloon’s descent. We also saw that Nexus S could withstand some pretty harsh temperatures (as low as -50˚C). Some interesting data we collected:
Maximum Speed: 139 mph
Maximum Altitude: 107,375 ft (over 20 miles, over 30 km)
Maximum Ascent Rate: 5.44 m/s
Average Flight Duration: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Average Descent Time: 34 minutes

By analyzing all the collected data, we were able to find some interesting trends. For instance, we determined the speed and altitude of the jet stream: about 130mph at 35,000 ft.

In the end, the team recovered all of the payloads sent up, we even recovered the payload we sent as a test a week prior to the actual launch. We had a blast taking Android all the way up to near space. If your interested in launching a balloon of your own, click here for more info. We have more exciting things coming your way as we use the openness of the Android platform to experiment here at mission Android headquarters.

*Special thanks to Arshan Poursohi, Greg Klein, and Tommy Nourse for all their help.

Posted by Zi Wang, Captain, Mission Android Headquarters

Global Warming Map – Review pt II


continued from Part I last week

Layer Control: The plugin version has no layer control available to control the individual impact layers (you can turn them on and off as a group) so you can’t get around the multiple areas problem I outline above. You can control impact layers in the GEarth file but it’s confusing:
there are 6 levels of folders and way too many elements in this folder view. It could be a lot simpler which would improve usability.
Non-Spatial Data and Closing Balloons: In the above screenshot you can see a folder titled ‘background information’ is provided. It’s non-spatial data so it shouldn’t be in GEarth at all – better to link to a set of web pages elsewhere showing the same information and avoid cluttering up the GEarth layers panel.
While I’m talking about ‘Background info’ its sub-folders (even though they don’t have a folder icon, that’s what they are) have pop up balloons with a black background so you can’t see where to click the cross to close the balloon.
Poor Balloon Design: There are a number of issues with the pop up balloons;
Information Density: IMHO balloons are there to hold extra information (including images or videos) that cannot be presented easily as a traditional map symbol/key system. If you read the actual text in the forest fire example below the information you are actually getting is: ‘high forest fire danger projected to affect every populated continent’. Unnecessarily it then tells you where the areas are that are affected – this is a map, that’s what the polygons are communicating, no need to say it again in text. So there’s little new information in the balloon, it’s interesting to compare with the amount of data you get in placemark balloons in the Dafur project
Large Fonts: The top design is from the Impacts section in the GEarth plugin, the font is way too large decreasing the total amount of text that can be put in the balloon. Its less of an issue in the GEarth file with the text more reasonably proportioned, I suspected someone re-used the KML in the main file in the plugin without customising it to this different presentation. Kirsty confirms that this was so and says that she asked for the large font size to ‘give more prominence to the headline messages we were communicating with this map’. My answer is that with smaller fonts you can add extra detail towards the bottom of a balloon without forcing the user to click a link, users will close a balloon happily when they’ve read enough information. Again, the Dafur project is a good example.
Lack of Design Coherence: The two balloons from two different sections also don’t marry visually, as can be seen above. This isn’t good graphical design, you should have a consistent look across a project (e.g. across all pages of bbc.co.uk). Kirsty explains that this is because the data comes from two different organisations (the Foreign Office and the Met Office) who do very different things (act on science, research science respectively). Kirsty says this difference needs to be ‘absolutely clear[in the mind of the user]’. I can understand that need but if the difference is so important, why isn’t it explained anywhere and why do the different data sets share a map in the first place?

Placemarks in Placemarks: In Google Earth opening ‘FCO Climate Change’ folder and then clicking the Spanish placemark you get an Inception-esque Google map within a GEarth map as captured in the screenshot below. Bizarrely you can open placemarks within a placemark leading to visual confusion.
Temperature Map Key: The temperature map overlay just about works in the original map as there is a key showing what the colors mean. However, in the GEarth file the key has become too small to read (its not available in the plugin). Most users will guess the heat colours corresponding to hot and cool temperatures but a readable key adds value.
Temperature Map Contours: The temperature map has heat contours on it out in the sea. These aren’t labelled and I would predict that most users won’t know what they are so it ends up just cluttering up the view.
Down-under Problem: I mentioned the fact you can’t compare Australia and the UK at the same time in a virtual globe in the skim review.
Talking Heads: The project links to video clips of experts talking about their specialisms within the topic area, they’re presented as talking head with no visual aids. Compare the style with a trailer from Wonders of the Solar system (one of the most successful science series the BBC has had)

Unless you are an exceptionally talented speaker (I’m certainly not) it’s very difficult to maintain a user’s attention as a talking head. Notice in the second clip that you never see Brian Cox against a static studio screen, the BBC are always trying to help the viewer visualise the point he’s making by putting him on location or providing a visualisation.

You don’t need a large travel and/or CGI budget to achieve this sort visual interest as I hope I showed in my latest climate change talk using GEarth as my main visualisation tool.
Kirsty comments that “they just wanted scientists to appear as the ordinary people they are”, that’s an understandable aim but I don’t think it relates to the ‘visual aids’ point I’ve made.

Conclusion:

This is not a failure as a project, I think its main positive is that the ‘what happens with 4 deg warming’ approach is a great choice to communicate climate science to the public. However, if the design had been thought through more it could have been a lot better.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the original map version of this project (e.g it had the same area problem) but it was OK. The vast majority of the issues I raise here have been introduced by moving the content to GEarth without thinking through what the pros and cons are of GEarth client/plugin as a presentation tool.
In relation to the above paragraph, Kirsty asks “This is the key point. The question is really, can GEarth be used to successfully display this map? … …the challenge we had was to present an existing map, already well-known, in the GEarth format”. My answer is that no, GEarth is not the best choice of medium if the data (as in this case) relates to inter-continental scales because of the downunder problem. I may elaborate in the future on what IMHO GEarth is best at.