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Comment by RainforestCx | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for checking out Rainforest Connection! Seems that there are lots of [appropriate] questions about how well this works in the forest, and how our partners on the ground follow up on alerts. Here’s a recent intervention in Peru that sums up the process: https://twitter.com/lilitjejauregui/status/97585519352188518...

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This is a really cool application of this technology, great work! Do you have any blog posts explaining the types of models you're using or open source repos that one could contribute to?

(Asking as a ML/Software Engineer who's pleasantly surprised and yearning to contribute to something like this!)

Thanks! We are a relatively small engineering team and we were mainly focused on improving our system. This took a lot of effort and time, we just haven't had a chance yet to think about open sourcing or blogging. Our days were focused on coding. If there's interest in blog posts, I could write up some of our technology. Just let me know whether there's an interest and what you'd like to know.

yes please!

I know that the US National Park Service Natural Sounds/Night Skies division has an incredible about of environmental audio data that's begging for automated analysis. This could be of much use to them. They do analyse their data, but it's largely been manual [1].

[1]: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6337/531

That's very interesting. The Rainforest Connection system has the ability to detect more than only chainsaws, so it could be really interesting to learn more from the datasets; we'll look into that. Thanks so much for sharing!

Do you setup wifi hotspots in the forest for this devices to send data back? Solar chargers is it universal for any android phone? what happens if phone is unable charge and shuts down? are those solar chargers available for sale to use in other forest projects?

Just signed up for your newsletter! I understand you don't want to open up the audio fingerprinting details, but everything else would be very interesting. I am interested in how do you get an old Android phone to run some your APKs headless, how do you update them OTA, how do you power them with solar (I guess you have an external power bank) — some basic questions if I want to put an old Android phone to my DIY project use.

I don't use Android but just did some googling and only have these ideas: roll your APK updates over a custom F-Droid repo, use SSHDroid to log into the headless machine, and/or use one of the DEX patching libraries. How far off are my thoughts?

Nice project, definitely a very important effort.

Also, I recall hearing about how some people or villages opt in to deforestation because they are offered a significant amount of money which can be used to feed their kids and provide an education which may help their communities eventually escape the poverty trap. Do you know anything about this, and if true, do you know of any groups trying to help?

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