Environment

PHOTO GALLERY: HP Earth Insights Gives Rise to the Animal “Selfie”

Feb 5, 2014 1:45 PM ET

Campaign: Environmental Progress: Making the environment stronger as we grow

This western gorilla is a Critically Endangered species that lives in the Republic of Congo. According to data in the WPI – which uses our HP Vertica big data analytics platform – the western gorilla population has likely declined approximately 10 percent.

The giant anteater is now considered a “vulnerable” species, as HP Earth Insights calculations show that the species has lost one third of its population during the past 10 years.

HP technology enables scientists, policymakers and the public to better track global biodiversity loss. Our HP Vertica software analyzes the more than three terabytes of critical biodiversity information gathered from 16 tropical forests in 14 countries. In addition to photos, the WPI processes more than three million climate measurements like precipitation, temperature, humidity and solar radiation. Quickly analyzing this data has allowed us to create an early warning system for threatened species like this tiger, which is in critical stages of endangerment.

In case you couldn’t tell, tapirs are a distant relative of the horse and rhinoceros. HP Earth Insights computations revealed that this Malayan variety has seen very real population declines that weren’t fully understood before.

Our data analysis also shows that the sun bear, the smallest of the bear species, is being threatened by land usage, where concern had not previously existed. Thanks to HP Earth Insights, scientists can now quickly track and compare preservation strategies in real-time from any location in the world.

Elephants can’t run very fast or for a very long period of time given their large size and heavy weight. In contrast, HP Vertica analyzes an elephant-sized amount of data – three terabytes of data is equal to approximately 51,000 hours of music or 4 months of video – but the technology is still 89 percent faster than older, manual methods.

Global biodiversity loss impacts food, fresh water, livelihoods and our planet’s ability to regulate itself and sustain life. This issue is vital, and HP is tackling it the best way we know how: with technology.

selfie

Syllabification: sel•fie
Pronunciation: /ˈselfē

“A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically taken with a smartphone or webcam.”

Admit it. Whether you decided to press publish or not, you’ve at least taken a selfie. In fact, so many selfies were captured last year – from President Obama to the Pope and even a selfie from space – that Oxford Dictionaries made “selfie” its 2013 Word of the Year.

Selfies are now so prevalent that these self-portraits are even making their way into the animal kingdom. As part of our HP Earth Insights collaboration with Conservation International, we have processed more than 1.4 million wildlife photos — many of them selfies. Every time an animal trips one of the Tropical Ecology and Assessment Monitoring (TEAM) Network’s1,000 camera traps, a photo is uploaded to the Wildlife Picture Index (WPI)– a data visualization tool that helps track species growth and decline across 16 tropical forests around the world.

Let’s just say, we have plenty of data since these animals are comfortable in front of the camera. We’ve compiled our favorite, picture-perfect animal selfies for you here.

We are using end-to-end HP solutions – from the HP Enterprise Services team who built the WPI to the ElitePads being used to capture data on location. We’re also using advanced Cloud solutions to meet the project’s growing data needs and HP ProLiant servers to power the big data systems in the backend. HP Earth Insights is an important partnership for us because it underscores HP’s larger commitment to Living Progress – using our talents and technology to solve society’s toughest challenges, including biodiversity.

PHOTO GALLERY: HP Earth Insights Gives Rise to the Animal “Selfie”

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