So this just happened: Actually it happened last week, and we blew past it without even noticing which point rolled it over. Officially, to date, Safecast has collected and published over 10,000,000 individual data points. That’s a huge milestone for us, and when you consider that it took us 6 months from March 11, 2011…
Safecast News
Safecast Air Force (drone program)
http://vimeo.com/channels/safecast/65520001 The above video is a hexacopter with an onboard bGeigie Nano taking radiation readings in flight and broadcasting live via wifi. It’s the result of the just finished week long Safecast hackathon that just took place in Cambridge, MA. There were a number of reasons to focus on a drone during this hackathon. Of…
Monitoring Fallout Decay
One of the great utilities of the Safecast project is the ability to collect and analyze environmental data on an unprecedented scale. As Safecast passes the two year mark with collecting radiation data in Japan it is now possible to begin to look back over the changes in radioactivity across different parts of the country…
Air Prototype Show & Tell
Last night at the weekly Crash Space meeting, Naim showed off the current, working, Safecast Air prototype during show & tell, as well as an example of a possible housing using plates. We’re calling the device the “canAIRe” and may actually use a can as the housing, but this was interesting to see in practice.…
Safecast Air: How do we determine what to measure?
How do you address the question of what should be measured in the air to help determine its quality in a meaningful way? As Safecast has been expanding its efforts into monitoring air quality we’ve been sorting out what to measure based on the following criteria: public health, environmental interest, and durability of the sensors…
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Health and Global Policy Institute
3月14日、日本医療政策機構主催の『他領域と医療のCross Discussion シリーズ』として、SAFECASTの取り組みをディレクターである、ピーター・フランケンが講演しました。 東京駅近くのカフェを会場にした朝８時スタートのイベントに、日本医療政策機構代表理事の黒川清先生をはじめ、大学生や出勤前の会社員等数多くの方々がピーターの話を聞きに集まりました。 ピーターは、当初、測定デバイスがなく自分たちでデバイスを作ることにしたことや、国や放送局が測定データに著作権をもっていてデータを活用出来ないといった、苦労話を交えながら、今日までのSAFECASTの取り組みについて語りました。 作成したデバイス用いてボランティアや協力してくださる方々に放射線量を測定してもらい500万箇所を超える測定データを収集できており、今なお測定データが増えています。また、収集したデータをCC0（クリエイティブ・コモンズ）のパブリック・ドメインの下、インターネット上で公開し誰もがアクセスできるようにしているのも特長のひとつです。世界で唯一成功し運営されている放射線センサーネットワーク構築のリアルな経験談に、参加者達は熱心にメモを取りながら耳を傾けていました。 また、今後の取り組みのひとつとして、放射線測定と同様に、大気の品質測定にも取り組み始めていることにも触れました。講演会前の日曜日、東京をはじめ関東地方の一部では煙霧（乾いた微粒子により視程が10km未満となっている状態）が発生したこと、また、海外でのPM2.5による大気汚染報道等により、出席者の中でも放射線以外の環境データについての関心も高かったようです。 質疑応答において、SAFECASTの経験から、プロジェクトの進め方へのアドバイスを求められた際、ピーターの「考えているばかりでなく、方向性を決めて行動をおこすこと。修正などはあるかもしれないが、まず、行動をおこすことが大事」という言葉は、参加者の心に強く残ったのではないでしょうか。 今後も、ひとりでも多くの方々にSAFECASTの活動を知っていただけるよう、様々な機会を通じて情報発信していきたいと思います。 新井利幸
The bGeigie Nano Kit
The biggest limitation Safecast has faced in collecting data is the limited availability of our workhorse device, the bGeigie. The design works great, but it’s expensive (each one costs us about $1000) and time consuming (building one can take an entire week) which results in us having limited numbers of them to keep in use.…
The time is Now! Global Giving is Matching donations to Safecast 200% on March 11th, 2013
We got quite some inquiries as to what is the right time to donate to Safecast to have Global Giving match your donation 200% on March 11th, expecially in which time zone. Well, the 200% matching is as as well as per Japan Standatrd Time (JST) and Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). So: The 200% Match Day…
Internews highlights the work of Safecast
Internews, an international non-profit formed in 1982 with a mission to empower local media worldwide, has been doing important and groundbreaking work in areas such as medial law and policy, expanding access to information, and delivering innovative media solutions. The organization trains media professionals and citizen journalists, hoping to increase coverage of vital issues such…
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Bike V2.0 and bGeigieNano
The start of the project for YR-Design was an extension of building bGiegies in Aizu Wakamatsu. By being in Aizu, having build a few bGeigies for SAFECAST and being exposed to the GreenSmile project from Jun Yamadera (Eyes-Japan), it was a logical step to enter the project. Jun Yamadera first came to YR-Design with his,…