Wired Mag reports on the most popular methods of searching employed when people's lives are on the line.
Algorithms need not apply, radar and gps do the trick when trying to find people buried in mud, debris and snow.
"Sgt. Tim Hagel, who was one of the leaders of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department's search-and-rescue efforts in La Conchita, said his team relied on a combination of heat-seeking and sound-sensitive tools to try to find people.
According to Hagel, rescuers there used thermal imagers, known as forward-looking infrared, or FLIR, to try to detect the body heat of people trapped under the rubble. He said that the devices were used both in the air -- on helicopters -- and on the ground."
It's nice to see a completely different aspect of search. Sometimes we get pigeon-holed into thinking of search in a linear way and with all the hype about search engines it's no wonder we do that. However, search [as a verb] applies to all sorts of activities that have nothing to do with Larry, Sergey or bald Butlers.
Posted by Jason Dowdell. Andy Beal is on vacation.
