Liquid Robotics' Wave Gliders Begin Historic Swim Across Pacific
spectrum.ieee.orghttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/business/wave-glider-a-flo...
"I was told 'find something interesting to do'." -jag
They should have been a wee bit more specific about whose interests they were referring to!
Here's a 1 hour talk on the Wave Glider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq4G2ciXjZI&t=13m11s
This is James Gosling's new gig...
I wonder if these can be considered the next generation of underwater gliders. There was a very interesting program on them recently - either on PBS or Discovery, can't recall exactly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_gliders
One of these made an Atlantic crossing.
http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/underwater-robots-explore-oce...
I dont understand why James thinks this will save the world.
"Save the world" is such a broad term. It really depends on what things about the world you find to be most important.
If your primary concerns are safety from hazardous ocean-based weather, security of offshore energy generators and fisheries, and a better understanding of the ocean's effect on climate change, Liquid Robotics' technology would certainly qualify as "saving the world".
It is just a different direction toward energy independence which could evolve in to something bigger.
Drug cartels seen salivating, writing large checks...
Wow, I ended up reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine because of that comment.
What's amazing is how sophisticated this technology is and how underreported it is. They are using fiberglass hulls to evade radar and transmitting their location using state of the art encryption.