A song sparrow perches on a branch in Craig Newmark's backyard. The image was captured using the CONE-SF system. SAN FRANCISCO -- Craig Newmark has set up a webcam on his rear deck to snoop on his neighbors -- and it's open to anyone on the internet.
But fear not; Newmark's no peeping tom. The webcam is a remote-controlled bird-watching cam, and it can be manipulated by thousands of virtual bird watchers simultaneously.
As of Monday, the Cone Sutro Forest cam is the latest of several remote-controlled webcams designed to allow scientists and nature lovers to program their own nature shows over the internet.
"People have put up bird cams to watch hawks nest on skyscrapers -- this is the same thing," said Newmark, father of Craigslist. "People are often fascinated with nature shows. With (Sutro Forest) you get your own nature show."
The researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Texas A&M who developed the technology hope to attract gamers and nature-enthusiasts in the bird-watching game, which is one in a series of webcam projects planned around the globe.
Players vie for spots on the top watchers' list by photographing and classifying the most birds. They snap stills of avian targets from the video stream, and the shots are dumped into a database for classification.
The camera processes user requests for pans and zooms in real-time. An algorithm calculates the best focal point to satisfy requests from the most users (now capped at 20 due to bandwidth constraints).
If the beta test is successful, similar observatories could be set up in remote locales to survey migration patterns of endangered wildlife.
The project leader, Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg, hopes the CONE will increase public interest in science and nature.
He also hopes the crowdsourcing approach will contribute to science by improving the efficiency of observation and sharing of information -- with little impact on the natural environment.
"We believe in citizen science," Goldberg said. "You'll care about the environment if you can experience it. A lot of people are never going to get out to Alaska or Antarctica. For a lot of people it's not really feasible for them even to get out into the woods."
Goldberg hopes to place future cameras in more exotic locales to observe bears Yosemite, polar bears in the Artic, mating penguins in Antarctica, gorillas in Rwanda and even whales using an underwater system.
Cameras could maybe eventually be dropped into inaccessible spots like active volcanoes. Outfitted with a thermal camera and temperature gauges, the camera could stream live observations of smoke and lava flows.
"We’d like to just be able to drop one of these in a remote place and have it set itself up," Goldberg said.
In February, another CONE outpost in Arkansas began seeking the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, which was rumored to be extinct.
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