Can you do science on a phone?

Click the image to download the PDF (3.5M) in a new window. The PDF includes slides and notes.Yes! Perhaps the real question should be: Would you want to? Isn't the very idea just an extension of the curse of mobility, never being away from your email, work, commitments? That's the glass half-empty view; it takes discipline to use your cellphone on your own terms, picking it up when it's convenient. And there's no doubt that sometimes it is convenient, like when your car breaks down, or you're out shopping for groceries and you can't remember if it was Winnie-the-Pooh or Disney Princess toothpaste you were supposed to get.

So smartphones are convenient. And everywhere. And most people seem to have a data plan or ready access to WiFi. And these devices are getting very powerful. So there's every reason to embrace the fact that these little computers will be around the office and lab, and get on with putting some handy, maybe even fun, geoscience on them. 

My talk, the last one of the meeting I blogged about last week, was a bit of an anomaly in the hardcore computational geophysics agenda. But maybe it was a nice digestif. You can read something resembling the talk by clicking on the image (above), or if you like, you can listen to me in this 13-minute video version:

So get involved, learn to program, or simply help and inspire a developer to build something awesome. Perhaps the next killer app for geologists, whatever that might be. What can you imagine...?

Just one small note to geoscience developers out there: we don't need any more seismographs or compass-clinometers!

What is commercial?

Just another beautiful geomorphological locality in Google's virtual globe software, a powerful teaching aid and just downright fun to play withAt one of my past jobs, we were not allowed to use Google Earth: 'unlicensed business use is not permitted'. So to use it we had to get permission from a manager, then buy the $400 Professional license. This came about because an early End-User License Agreement (EULA) had stipulated 'not for business use'. However, by the time the company had figured out how to enforce this stipulation with an auto-delete from PCs every Tuesday, the EULA had changed. The free version was allowed to be used in a business context (my interpretation: for casual use, learning, or illustration), but not for direct commercial gain (like selling a service). Too late: it was verboten. A game-changing geoscience tool was neutered, all because of greyness around what commercial means. 

Last week I was chastised for posting a note on a LinkedIn discussion about our AVO* mobile app. I posted it to an existing discussion in a highly relevant technical group, Rock Physics. Now, this app costs $2, in recognition of the fact that it is useful and worth something. It will not be profitable, simply because the total market is probably well under 500 people. The discussion was moved to Promotions, where it will likely never be seen. I can see that people don't want blatant commeriality in technical discussion groups. But maybe we need to apply some common sense occasionally: a $2 mobile app is different from a $20k software package being sold for real profit. Maybe that's too complicated and 'commercial means commercial'. What do you think?

But then again, really? Is everyone in applied science not ultimately acting for commercial gain? Is that not the whole point of applied science? Applied to real problems... more often than not for commercial gain, at some point and by somebody. It's hopelessly idealistic, or naïve, to think otherwise. Come to think of it, who of us can really say that what we do is pure academy? Even universities make substantial profits—from their students, licensing patents, or spinning off businesses. Certainly most research in our field (hydrocarbons and energy) is paid for by commercial interests in some way.

I'm not saying that the reason we do our work is for commercial gain. Most of us are lucky enough to love what we do. But more often than not, it's the reason we are gainfully employed to do them. It's when we try to draw that line dividing commercial from non-commercial that I, for one, only see greyness.

News of the week

This week has been fairly quiet for geoscience and technology news, so we're hijacking our own post to highlight a couple of Agile* changes you might have missed. The first one is this very feature—our News of the week post. More or less every Friday we round up some geoscience news with an oil & gas or technology angle. If you spot something you think we should include, please scribble a quick note to hello at agilegeoscience dot com!

Another new feature on our site is subscription by email. Every blog post comes right to your email inbox, so you won't miss any Agile* goodness. Go to the SUBSCRIBE box on the right (under the tag cloud), enter your email address and hit Subscribe. It's that easy! No password to remember, 100% spam free, and you can unsubscribe any time. Powered by Google.

If you're a regular reader then you know all about our new mobile apps. At the moment, for completely practical reasons, they are only available for Android™ devices. We just upgraded our first app, Volume*, a prospect volumetrics tool—now you can save and recall prospects! In the next couple of days we will launch our first über-app, AVO*. Visit the wiki for a sneak peak.

The wiki? Yes, last month we launched AgileWiki, an experiment in sharing knowledge about the subsurface. We know that much of what we know and do as industrial, applied scientists is proprietary—that's what in-house corporate wikis and knowledge bases are for. But some of it at least is basic, foundational, and generic in nature. And that's what AgileWiki is for. Join in, share what you know!

You might have noticed we've started dabbling a bit with video, and have a nascent YouTube channel. Today, the focus is on our mobile apps, but we are planning features on seismic interpretation workflows and other fun things. And we're open to feedback and suggestions on this effort, please let us know what you think!

We work hard to be interesting and relevant, not self-promoting and commercial. But occasionally people ask us what we actually do. So we made a one-pager setting out our stall. If you need some help doing something weird and wonderful, or just tricky and time-consuming, keep us in mind! We love helping people.

This ends the public service announcement. Back to our regular news feature next week!

Update on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 11:26 AM by Matt Hall

A quick follow up on one of the items in this post. We released AVO* into the Android Market yesterday. After much debate, we decided to experiment with charging for this app... It's $2. Reason for being so low: we want it to spread. Reason for not being free: it's awesome. Point your barcode reader at the QR code to install it...

More geophysics apps

Please welcome our latest app, Fold*, into the world. It is now available for free in the Android Market. This one is aimed at geophysicists planning land 3D seismic surveys. You provide some basic data about the geometry, and the tool computes fold in natural bins, and trace density per unit area. It also provides a qualitative description of what such a geometry might be good for (simple structure only, say, or high S:N or reflectivity areas). Read all about it in the wiki.

We have also put together a new page on this website, gathering news & info all our geoscience apps in one place. You will find it in the title bar above. Please share it with anyone you see using an Android™ phone or tablet!

 If you have a wish for an app, leave a comment or drop us a line!

Volumetrics on the back of a digital envelope

A few weeks ago we launched our first mobile app, Volume*, now available in the Android Market (you can jump right to it with the barcode on the right). If you have an Android phone or tablet, please check it out! Today, I thought I'd write a bit more about I built the app, show you some of the gory details, and tell you about the latest update.

Click to read more ...