Wi-Fi used to clear oil spills

The Swedish coastguard has decided to standardise on email as a convenient form of communication.

Apparently it has little use for secrecy since one of its major tasks in the Baltic seas is oil spill clearance. One of the problems is that intelligence about oil spills is gathered by aircraft which photograph the affected areas.

The problem is how to send the large graphical files these aircraft collect to the coastguard's ships so they can sail straight to the correct spot.

Well, the answer they have come up with will be to install Wi-Fi on their boats and planes so that as the spotter plane flies over, the files are transferred. This solution is currently undergoing trails.

If you think that is shocking how about the Swedish gunboat The INQ just toured which is part of their existing fleet? Its main task is to chase Russian subs.

They don't use paper charts at all and instead rely on four video screens. And the servers. Yup. Microsoft Windows NT. The captain told us that the infamous ALT CTRL DEL has been disabled so sailors can't accidentally reboot the system. Oh, that's OK then. µ