New technology in an old city
I’ve been lucky enough to witness two recent events in Venice that indicate to me that this ancient city is, in fact, being kept rather up-to-date with modern technological advances.
The first was a sheer coincidence this past weekend, that I happened to be in the same place as a fellow wearing on his shoulders an apparatus to photograph Venice, Street View-style.
He had a sign on his back that said he was working for Geomondo, an Italian company whose website says they patented a system for acquiring 360-degree street view imagery “one year” before Google introduced Street View. They seem to specialize in pedestrian-oriented photography, rather than Google’s car-oriented approach, aiming their products at tourists and tourism applications that need data collected where cars can’t go (e.g., the calli of Venice, as well as “beaches and inside historical buildings”).
If you visit their website, you can watch a video on how they capture their images (I think the guy I took pictures of is actually in the video, in one of the shots towards the end where they’re editing the panoramas together). Or go here and actually see some of the results of their work to date. Pretty cool!
His elaborate “backpack” supported four Canon dSLR cameras mounted on top of a pole, presumably with wide-angle lenses that would provide a nice 360-degree panorama when stitched together. In his hands, he carried a small laptop, which he consulted frequently (probably for directions, but maybe also to verify his data capture was going well). Somewhere on him I’m sure he carried a large-capacity hard drive to store all the photos, and probably some kind of battery to power everything, too. As he walked, the cameras would all click simultaneously, roughly once every 5 seconds. Perhaps it was actually every 10 or 15 feet, which would make more sense, especially because there appeared to be a GPS antenna mounted on the very top of the pole (good luck getting a reliable signal in the narrow streets of Venice!).
The second item is the introduction of free wifi for all residents of Venice, in selected campi and parks throughout the city. It came online on July 3, and, conveniently living on the edge of a park myself, I am able to access it without even going outside. Alberto pointed out to me the recent addition of the wifi antennae to streetlamp poles around the city, and I took a picture of one so you can see what they look like. I’m writing this post on Venice wifi, and it seems to be reliable and fast.
There are a few other photos of both items available in the gallery.
Here’s one other cool techy thing I discovered recently: Argos. This system tracks, in real time, boat traffic and congestion on the Grand Canal. If you go here, you’ll see the live camera feeds, with the computer’s boat-recognition information overlaid. It even tells you how many boats are speeding in each segment of the Grand Canal. Alberto says they also have a system for zooming in and recording license plate numbers of speeders, but unlike on the highways in Italy and North America and elsewhere, where you can be ticketed without the actual involvement of a police officer, Venice hasn’t yet certified the system and still requires speeders to be pulled over by an actual police boat.
Let’s hope they’ll make the ticketing system functional soon. After all, in what other city does the act of speeding actually hasten the destruction the foundations of the houses along the street?
The first was a sheer coincidence this past weekend, that I happened to be in the same place as a fellow wearing on his shoulders an apparatus to photograph Venice, Street View-style.
His elaborate “backpack” supported four Canon dSLR cameras mounted on top of a pole, presumably with wide-angle lenses that would provide a nice 360-degree panorama when stitched together. In his hands, he carried a small laptop, which he consulted frequently (probably for directions, but maybe also to verify his data capture was going well). Somewhere on him I’m sure he carried a large-capacity hard drive to store all the photos, and probably some kind of battery to power everything, too. As he walked, the cameras would all click simultaneously, roughly once every 5 seconds. Perhaps it was actually every 10 or 15 feet, which would make more sense, especially because there appeared to be a GPS antenna mounted on the very top of the pole (good luck getting a reliable signal in the narrow streets of Venice!).
There are a few other photos of both items available in the gallery.
Here’s one other cool techy thing I discovered recently: Argos. This system tracks, in real time, boat traffic and congestion on the Grand Canal. If you go here, you’ll see the live camera feeds, with the computer’s boat-recognition information overlaid. It even tells you how many boats are speeding in each segment of the Grand Canal. Alberto says they also have a system for zooming in and recording license plate numbers of speeders, but unlike on the highways in Italy and North America and elsewhere, where you can be ticketed without the actual involvement of a police officer, Venice hasn’t yet certified the system and still requires speeders to be pulled over by an actual police boat.
Let’s hope they’ll make the ticketing system functional soon. After all, in what other city does the act of speeding actually hasten the destruction the foundations of the houses along the street?
great post. Split the items into multiple posts for ease of future reference