The company that controls most of the Earth-facing image-capturing satellites has a bold new plan to use artificial intelligence to track changes around the world — from traffic to construction to new park benches— and they’re collaborating with the CIA to pull it off.
On Thursday, satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe announced they have joined forces with Amazon, chipmaker Nvidia, and the CIA’s venture arm CosmiQ Works to create SpaceNet, a new initiative with a goal of creating artificial intelligence that can read and interpret images of the Earth.
Most of the images of the Earth available on Google Maps came from DigitalGlobe’s four satellites. But when you look at your backyard on Google, you only get a hint of the high-resolution imagery that the company produces, as they save the good stuff for paying customers or partners. Thanks to one such such partnership, the United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) used DigitalGlobe images to find two ships that had been seized by Somali pirates. Last month, thecompany partnered with Uber so the transportation company can get a better sense of changing urban landscapes, as road maps sometimes don’t keep up with city development. Earlier this year,Facebook bought DigitalGlobe satellite images then developed algorithms that outline buildings. Facebook then used that data to track population density. – READ MORE
