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Monday, February 23, 2009

Planning For Disasters Using Video Game Technologies

A former Microsoft product planner, Mike Geersten, has built a business planning for and reacting to disasters based on the knowledge he employed while working on Microsoft Flight Simulator and train sims. With $1.5 million in angel investment Geersten has put together a team of 14 to develop and market his software called Depiction which helps model the effect of disasters on land mass. "Depiction can be used to plan for disasters ahead of time, but it's also useful for collecting and organizing data during a crisis. Citizens can e-mail reports from the field, and emergency workers can feed other data directly into the software to find alternative routes when downed power lines, flood waters or landslides block roads."

This Wired video discusses how Depiction can be used to examine the effect of rising seas on New York City and what might be done to preserve the city from these effects.

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