Safecast is a global sensor network for collecting and sharing radiation measurements to empower people with data about their environments.

Giving Back to Japan 2

May 17, 2012 06:08 May 17, 2012 06:08 May 17, 2012 06:08
 

SAFECAST participated in the Giving Back to Japan event. The main event was presentation and panel discussion by five mayors from Tohoku. One of the mayors, Watanabe-san from Aizu Misato in Fukushima Pref, is a Safecast volunteer and he talked about the situation one year after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

Together with Joe Moross we manned a booth where we showcased the latest bGeigie+, Safecast interactive map, Rad-stickers (TM), and our SAM940 defender. We had cool Safecast T-shirts for sale and had quite some interest. Noda-san, Safecast volunteer in Chiba, dropped by to get her bGeigie serviced. The event was attended by over 400 people and many came to drop by at our booth. Some of our volunteers were under the attendees and it was great to catch up.

Continue reading »

Group empowers monitoring of radiation levels for everyone

May 14, 2012 08:31 May 14, 2012 08:31 May 14, 2012 08:31
 

Safecast was featured recently in a full page article in the Nikkei Weekly.

Continue reading »

Visualizing a radiation hotspot

May 6, 2012 07:13 May 6, 2012 07:13 May 6, 2012 07:13
 

Explanation of the blotchiness of radiation levels along a road in Iitate mura area, Fukushima prefercture. Safecast’s Joe Moross shows how level vary dramatically over a few meters for both air and surface dose rates.

Safecasting Fukushima Live Report

May 3, 2012 19:26 May 3, 2012 19:26 May 3, 2012 19:26
 

Today we are Safecasting from Tokyo to Minami Soma, Fukushima. Driving today are Joe and Kalin with self in the back seat handling communications (ahem)


Today’s goal is to measure a hotspot we recently found on our map in Minami Soma, take soil samples, cover a few roads not covered yet, and meet with volunteers in Koriyama in the evening. So far we have had heavy traffic due to rain and Golden Week holiday rush, and we hope to achieve as much as possible. Total distance 500km back and forth.

On board we have a lot of measurement equipment – 8 bGeigies, 14 various geiger counters and 1 spectrometer (SAM940 3″). We also have tools for taking soil samples. Continue reading »

Safecast year anniversary event, Shibuya

April 6, 2012 06:10 April 6, 2012 06:10 April 6, 2012 06:10
 

On March 25th we held a one year anniversary event in Shibuya, Tokyo to discuss the last year of work by Safecast and what we had planned for the coming year. Here are some photos from that event. All photos by Stig Bjorge

  • April 6, 2012 06:10
  • Posted by kiki on April 6, 2012 06:10
  •   Comments Off
  •   Events

Event announcement: “Decontamination and Food Safety: Is Enough Being Done?”

April 4, 2012 20:53 April 4, 2012 20:53 April 4, 2012 20:53
 

The decontamination and food safety discussion which was originally scheduled to be held at the Australian Embassy in Tokyo on April 1, 2012, has been moved to another location:

“Decontamination and Food Safety:  Is Enough Being Done?”

Date : Thursday 12 April

Time: 18:30-20:00 (Doors open at 18:00)
Location:  K.I.T Toranomon Graduate School
Atago Toyo Bldg.
Room 101 (ground floor)
1-3-4 Atago, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0002

Access:
http://www.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/tokyo/map.htm
http://www.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/tokyo/english/index.html

8 mins from Ginza Line, Toranomon Stn
8 mins from Hibiya Line, Kamiyacho Stn
8 mins from Toei Mita Line, Onarimon Stn

The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited.

Outline of discussion:
Continue reading »

Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun newspaper article about Safecast Loftwork event on March 25, 2012

April 4, 2012 11:24 April 4, 2012 11:24 April 4, 2012 11:24
 

Introduction by the translator: The following is an unofficial English translation of the original article in Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun a Japanese newspaper about industrial matters. The Nikkei group also publishes the Nihon Kezai Shimbun which is the major financial newspaper of Japan. Please note that the journalist solely used the term “Senryokei” to describe radiation measurement equipment (which includes geiger counters, but is a wider, more general term). There is no mention in the article about Safecast’s bGeigie system (of which the geiger counter “survey meter” is only a part of the total) continuously recording sets of GPS-coordinates and radiation levels that gets uploaded to the internet “as-is” under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 license for everyone to observe, download, and use freely without any limitations.

Safecast Survey Meter – Technology and Funds from Outside Sources

“This is our new survey meter”, said Dan Sythe, President of International Medcom in California, presenting a palm-size prototype of a new survey meter. On March 25, 2012 core members of Safecast, an international volunteer group, gathered in Shibuya, Tokyo to celebrate their group’s one year anniversary.

The survey meter measures alpha, beta, gamma rays and can be easily connected to the internet via USB. It has a characteristic design with no sharp edges. The price will be around 50,000 yen and part of each sale will be donated to Safecast.

It will be sold on the Amazon internet site from sometime this summer, and it may make more of the general public participate in radiation measurements to facilitate large scale measurement of the radiation that was dispersed in various places after the nuclear power accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi in March 2011.

Dan Sythe got involved in Safecast through his friend. Several Safecast members got involved in the same way. Safecast started from the online communication of only three individuals. Right after the nuclear power accident Pieter Franken, CTO of Monex Securities Co., Joichi Ito, known for his extensive activities in foreign countries, currently Director of MIT Media Lab, and Sean Bonner, a Los Angeles based entrepreneur, exchanged e-mails and tweets: “What has happened?” “Did you make sure your family is safe?” Their conversation shifted to the subject of radiation and that survey meters to measure radiation were scarce and hard to get hold of. They agreed that they have got to make one by themselves. Continue reading »

  • April 4, 2012 11:24
  • Posted by the_STIG on April 4, 2012 11:24
  •   Comments Off
  •   Editorial

Monitoring Air Quality

April 1, 2012 13:59 April 1, 2012 13:59 April 1, 2012 13:59
 

When we founded Safecast we were very aware that Radiation wasn’t the only invisible environmental factor around us that people should have more data about. It was the most pressing and the spark that set this in motion, but we wanted to keep the doors open and use the platform we’ve built to expand the factors we’re monitoring. Last month at our one year anniversary meeting in Tokyo we announced that we’re taking the first step in that direction.

Beginning this year we’ll begin to monitor air quality as well as radiation. Safecast volunteer Ariel Levi Simons will be heading up this wing of the project – he’s based in Los Angeles where he’s a science teacher at The Wildwood School and where air quality is a constant topic, yet most people know very little about what the actual content of the air they breath is. This is the very early stages, but if you’d like to join these discussions we’ve created a Safecast Air Monitoring Project Mailing & Discussion list where we’ll begin to put these pieces together.

Information Disbursement

March 19, 2012 23:48 March 19, 2012 23:48 March 19, 2012 23:48
 

We publish our readings online, and now offline as well.

Safecast events in Tokyo March 24 + 25

March 19, 2012 11:00 March 19, 2012 11:00 March 19, 2012 11:00
 

This coming weekend we’ll have a few events around Tokyo marking the 1 year anniversary of Safecast’s existence. On Saturday evening, March 24th from 2200 – 0030, we’ll participate in the Roppongi Art Night events. We’re presenting here in conjunction with others, we’ll actually only have 15 minutes of this time, but not sure when that 15 minutes will be. Safecast co-founders Sean Bonner (presenting in English) and Pieter Franken (presenting in Japanese) will spend 10 minutes showing photos from the last 12 months of Safecast, and Safecast visualization lead Tony DeVincenzi will join for the last few moments to show new maps and related visuals. Akiba will follow with 5 minutes of Geiger counter music.

On Sunday March 25th at Loftwork’s newly opened FabCafe in Shibuya we’ll have a bit longer to talk about what we’ve been up to for the last year. From 1100 – 1300 we’ll give a Safecast Presentation that is open to the public, press invited. We will show off selected photos and data from the first year of Safecast, as well as brand new data visualizations recently built by Tony DeVincenzi and his team at MIT Media Lab, and a prototype of the new geiger counter we’ve designed that will be in production soon. Following that from 1300 to 1500 we’ll host an open session for anything, Q&A, Demos, etc.

Hope you can make it!

  • March 19, 2012 11:00
  • Posted by sean on March 19, 2012 11:00
  •   Comments Off
  •   Events
 Older Entries