It always amazes me how technology is used. It wasn't until my sister-in-law came to Texas that I really started to use text messaging. Yes, I realize many people cannot live without it but it just wasn't something I grew up with nor was it a technology that I had any reason to use. But in the last year that has changed. I text more than I used to, probably not as often as some but definitely more than many of my generation of
friends.
So, who else is texting out there? Well, it appears elephants are now using texting. This weekend I ran into one of those technology articles that your catches your interest. It seems that in Kenya at the Ol Pejeta conservancy there is an elephant, Kimani, who is wearing a
special tracking collar that can send text messages back to the rangers. This is done with a mobile phone card placed in his tracking collar. These text messages alert the rangers when Kimani is too close to a village or crops and allows them to herd him back into his territory before he can cause any destruction. This collar with text messaging capabilities puts a virtual fence in place for the elephant. This way the rangers have more options to choose from to handle the elephants, previously they had to resort to shooting the elephants that were
destroying crops and attacking villages. Google Earth is also being used to help track the animals, in fact on the Save the Elephants website you can locate the elephants they are currently monitoring.
You may be wondering why I found this article so interesting. Here I am, a person who has never been shy about using technology, yet I had problems with texting and there's this elephant texting in Africa. That was part of it, but it goes deeper. I think it is wonderful that organizations that want to preserve these wonderful creatures and beautiful countries are able to use a technology we take for granted and are at times reluctant to try. What other technologies are out there waiting to be used in ways we wouldn't expect?
friends.
So, who else is texting out there? Well, it appears elephants are now using texting. This weekend I ran into one of those technology articles that your catches your interest. It seems that in Kenya at the Ol Pejeta conservancy there is an elephant, Kimani, who is wearing a
special tracking collar that can send text messages back to the rangers. This is done with a mobile phone card placed in his tracking collar. These text messages alert the rangers when Kimani is too close to a village or crops and allows them to herd him back into his territory before he can cause any destruction. This collar with text messaging capabilities puts a virtual fence in place for the elephant. This way the rangers have more options to choose from to handle the elephants, previously they had to resort to shooting the elephants that were
destroying crops and attacking villages. Google Earth is also being used to help track the animals, in fact on the Save the Elephants website you can locate the elephants they are currently monitoring.
You may be wondering why I found this article so interesting. Here I am, a person who has never been shy about using technology, yet I had problems with texting and there's this elephant texting in Africa. That was part of it, but it goes deeper. I think it is wonderful that organizations that want to preserve these wonderful creatures and beautiful countries are able to use a technology we take for granted and are at times reluctant to try. What other technologies are out there waiting to be used in ways we wouldn't expect?
It is also interesting to me. Tracking rare animals probably help for us to keep them away from extinction. However, I think we have to make it secure against those attempts to hunt them. This is a difficult problem, because signaling objects can be easily detected and located by our state-of-the-art technology, which has not been developed to do so obviously.
I thought the same thing about using these signals to hunt the animals. And I also was wondering if people were using this type of technology to track other things. It raises some interesting issues that definitely should be explored and discussed further.
What an interesting article, Heidi! Thanks for drawing our attention to it!
I, too, have resisted text messaging. I find it too cumbersome. I prefer to stick to IM for text-based conversation. :)
Glad you enjoyed it, it seems it has created a little interest with our classmates. I find it interesting that you IM but don't text message. I have found myself very reluctant to IM, not quite sure why but can't seem to get comfortable with that method of communicating. Have always wondered why people enjoy using it so much, perhaps you can fill me in. Once my sister-in-law explained to me the plus's to text messaging it made sense and now I find myself not as reluctant to using it.