January 23, 2008
Google to Host Open-Source Science Data
As Google continues in its attempt to organize the world of information for us all, Google research has disclosed that it will soon provide a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets. The storage will be free to scientists and access to the data will be free for all. The project, known as Palimpsest was first previewed to the scientific community last August.
Building on the company's acquisition of the data visualization technology, Trendalyzer, Google will also be offering algorithms for the examination and probing of the information. The new site will have an interface for annotating and commenting.
It is reported that they will send researchers a [free] 3TB "suitcase" to transport their data back Google. The storage would fill a need for scientists who wish to openly share their data, and would allow citizen scientists access to an unprecedented amount of data to explore. Two planned datasets are all 120 terabytes of Hubble Space Telescope data and the images from the Archimedes Palimpsest, the 10th century manuscript that inspired the Google dataset storage project.
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Posted by rsk at January 23, 2008 01:34 PM