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New York’s flood sensor network will soon expand across the city
Thanks to $7.2 million in funding from New York City, the number of flood-prone areas FloodNet monitors will increase from 31 to 500 across all five boroughs. The expansion is expected to start next month and take up to five years.
Google expands AI-powered flood detection and wildfire systems
The company hopes to help those who are direct risk of flooding, and to assist organizations and governments in mobilizing their responses.
NYU is building an ultrasonic flood sensor network in New York's Gowanus neighborhood
A team of researchers from NYU and CUNY are working to expand a network of street-level sensors to better protect the city against climate change-induced flooding.
Sony 'Fortnite' leak all but confirms a flood theme for Chapter 2 Season 3
'Fortnite' Season 3 looks like it's gonna be wet and wild.
MIT is crowdsourcing hurricane flood maps in Florida
People in Broward County, Florida have one more map to rely on this weekend as Hurricane Irma passes through the state. MIT has launched RiskMap, a crowdsourced platform meant to track and map flooding by relying on people's social media reports, as a pilot project. The county's residents can update the map by contacting its Twitter DM, Telegram and Facebook Messenger chatbots. They'll then have to submit their location, a description of its conditions and a photo showing its current flood level. Other residents and officials planning evacuations or sending help can then see those updates on the map as they go live.
Hello Games not insured for flood damage, Microsoft's Phil Spencer 'going to look into' situation
Hello Games, the studio behind surprise VGX 2013 hit No Man's Sky, continued their run of bad luck this week. The company announced via Twitter that insurance won't be covering damages the studio sustained during a Christmas Eve flood. "BAD NEWS! Had a 'hilarious' call with insurer yesterday. Small print is if you are in a flood risk zone, you are not insured for flooding :(" the tweet reads. Another tweet, timestamped 13 minutes later, tried to find the silver lining: "On a brighter note, no insurance means we can just wade in and start setting things straight! Hello Games assemble!" The studio has received many tweets of support and well-wishes, and the situation has not gone unnoticed by bigger companies. When Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios Phil Spencer was asked by a Twitter user if he could "spread some cheer" to Hello Games, Spencer responded that he was "going to look into it." Hello Games has not announced any external funding, corporate or otherwise, that would cover the flood damage.
Hello Games says goodbye to PCs, monitors and more after office flood
Massive flooding across areas of the UK has struck a productivity blow to indie developer Hello Games. Yesterday, via Twitter, the house that birthed Joe Danger announced its Guildford office had been swallowed by rushing water. "A river broke its bank nearby yesterday, and a lot of water flooded in really quickly. A biblical amount. It was coming in the windows!" "We've lost most things – PCs, monitors, furniture, a door, a wall. You'd think the massive water cooled mega PC would be ok? It was not," a follow-up Tweet revealed. Hello Games is currently working on the gorgeous No Man's Sky, a standout announcement at the VGX Awards earlier this month. Despite the loss, Hello Games is in good spirits. "We're taking stock today, but already I know we'll come back stronger," the dev's Twitter account promised. "All we'll need is a place to work and a machine to work on." Joystiq has contacted Hello Games to learn if the flooding has resulted in permanent data loss and its altered timetable for No Man's Sky, but have yet to hear back at the time of publishing.
Butlers, lunar rovers, snakes and airboats: the best of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute
How was your week? We got to spend a couple of days trekking around the Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh, PA to check out some of the latest projects from the school's world renowned Robotics Institute -- a trip that culminated with the bi-annual induction ceremony from the CMU-sponsored Robot Hall of Fame. Given all the craziness of the past seven days, you might have missed some of the awesomeness, but fear not, we've got it all for you here in one handy place -- plus a couple of videos from the trip that we haven't shown you yet. Join us after the break to catch up.
Platypus airboats have a Nexus S for a brain, we go eyes-on (video)
Here's another extremely cool offshoot of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. Platypus LLC build autonomous robotic airboats that can be deployed for a wide range of usages including environmental data and monitoring hard-to-reach spots after natural disasters like flooding. The hull of the boat looks a good deal like a boogie board, built from polyurethane. On top, you'll find a propulsion fan assembly, just behind a hard plastic electronics compartment that houses internals like the Arduino board. That microcontroller communicates via Bluetooth with a smartphone that sits in the front of of the boat, safely cocooned inside an Otterbox case. The models we saw this week were carrying Nexus S handsets -- relatively cheap solutions bought second-hand off of eBay. Just about any Android phone should do the trick, but in the case of this project, where phones can get wrenched loose or just outright pilfered, cheaper is certainly better. Platypus' proprietary app helps control the boat autonomously, using the handset's camera to provide situational awareness. Sensors mounted on the boat, meanwhile, offer up information on oxygen and PH levels, temperature and more.%Gallery-169017%
Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high
Last year's floods in Thailand caused hard drive shortages after wreaking havoc on a number of electronics manufacturers, but new stats from IHS iSuppli indicate that the HDD market for PCs has fully recovered and is poised to hit an all time high. The firm expects 524 million units for internal use in PCs to ship this year, besting the previous record by 4.3 percent. What's giving the recovery an added boost? According to the analytics group, the extra demand comes courtesy of Windows 8 and Ultrabooks. Unfortunately for deal hounds, the company noted in a report earlier this year that prices aren't expected to dip below the pre-flood range until 2014. If IHS iSuppli projections hold true, total annual hard drive shipments could reach 575.1 million by 2016.
Seagate expects flood-related hard drive shortages to continue
Seagate took some time out from its busy earnings reporting schedule to address supply concerns stemming from the recent devastating floods in Thailand. The storage manufacturer announced that hard drives supply will likely fall 150 million units short of demand by year's end. While Seagate's own factories weren't directly hit, suppliers for the company were impacted -- as were competitors, like Western Digital. The events have also had a more positive impact on Seagate, however -- as a result of the floods, a number of large buyers have entered into long-term agreements, according to the company.
Results of Thailand floods still affecting tech industry
Last year, Thailand was rocked by floods that devastated the country. It destroyed cities and towns and put a severe dent in Taiwan's manufacturing industry. Hard drive manufacturing was hit the hardest and shortages in the supply of drives started to surface last year. This deficit is impacting tech companies from Western Digital to Intel and AMD. According to Macworld, Western Digital recorded US$199 million in charges and expenses from the floods and its hard drive manufacturing plants are still trying to recover. As a result, hard drive shipments fell from 57.8 million drives in Q3 2011 to 28.5 million drives in Q4. Intel's business slowed as computer makers like HP lowered their microprocessor orders. Even AMD's GPU business, which uses components made in Thailand, fell 10 percent in the last quarter because of this manufacturing slowdown. Unlike other tech companies, this shortage will have little impact on Apple's computer business. CEO Tim Cook confirmed in yesterday's earnings conference call that Apple will see little financial impact from this disaster. The company will pay more for its supply of hard drives, but it can secure the drives that it needs for its computers. It helps that Apple has moved several of its computer models to SSD, which is not affected by the floods. It also doesn't hurt that the company has a $97 billion cash reserve to absorb this extra manufacturing cost. For the financially-minded, this extra cost is already calculated in Apple's Q2 2012 guidance.
Sony starts making NEX and SLT cameras again, following Thai floods
DPReview reports that Sony has resumed production of its SLT and NEX cameras, which may include the NEX-7 and A65 cameras, after two of its three main manufacturing plants in Thailand were hit by extreme floods nearly a month ago. The impact was enough to make a sizable dent in the company's financial outlook and force it to establish a new plant further south in the country. There's apparently still no confirmation of when products will start shipping, but as long as the conveyor belts are rolling and people are back in employment, we're not complaining.
Roll up your pants, the Flood confirmed in Halo Wars
var digg_url = 'http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/08/roll-up-your-pants-the-flood-confirmed-in-halo-wars/'; Stop your speculating, the Tokyo Game Show gives us all sorts of goodies, like the fact the the Flood is going to be in Halo Wars, which is coming "sometime" in 2009. Our own Chris Grant, esquire is jaunting off to a meeting about Halo Wars as we type this very post, and he's going to do some investigating to find out if the Flood is a playable race, or just something thrown in to make life a living hell for everyone. Now, if you got to play as Gravemind, that would be pretty cool.
How would your DS fare ... in a volcano?
That's one of the many tough questions Robert Falcon asks over at modojo.com. He decided to analyze the DS and PSP's ability to survive various natural disasters, including floods, earthquakes, and blizzards. Keep in mind that if your DS Lite somehow manages to find its way into a pit of boiling lava, you need to take pictures so we can post them. Seriously, that stuff is blogging gold.On a slightly more serious tack, has anyone had a DS or DS Lite miraculously survive when it had no right doing so? Let us know![Thanks, Justin!]
LEGO Halo: the complete collection
It turns out Mandalore's LEGO Elite was only the tip of the iceberg. We've just unearthed a massive collection of LEGO Halo projects. Everything from the Pelican Dropship to the Flood Infection form is featured at this bounteous portal, maintained by Justin "Saber-Scorpion" Stebbins. Mr. Stebbins, whose Warthog model is displayed above, is a self-proclaimed LEGO Halo veteran -- and also a fledgling novelist. Just shy of his twentieth birthday, Stebbins looks poised for a successful career in brick building. So is Lego Group hiring?[Thanks, Mr. Noodles]
Apple flooded in Cupertino
This morning a major water leak left a foot of water on the floors of an Apple Computer Inc building in Cupertino. According to a Santa Clara County fire Department dispatcher, and as reported by CBS5.com, more than 100 gallons of water per minute were pouring into the building from a leak under the first floor. We here at TUAW are the first to admit that we think Apple goes overboard in worrying about leaks, but it seems like the one this morning wouldn't have been plugged even with copious nondisclosure agreements.
