3 ms·

Meanwhile in German politics: "We don't need 5G on every cow facility" [1]. Turns out, modern agriculture needs good mobile connectivity wherever cows are bein

• DocTomoe 1y ago
  I guess we would just set up a cow fence. These GPS trackers help find cattle, possibly making rescue efforts faster and thus cheaper, but they do not prevent them falling into that river in the first place. A fence does. I know, this is the classical "NASA builds a 1 million dollar Space pen, Russians use pencil" story - but sometimes, high tech is not necessary to solve problems that have been solved for centuries. Doesn't mean we don't need better infrastructure. Just that we should avoid overcomplicating things.
  • readams 1y ago
    If you read the article, you'll find that in fact the collars do prevent them from moving toward the river using sound, vibration, and shocks.
  • mrmanner 1y ago
    > they do not prevent them falling into that river in the first place The article explains pretty well how the devices prevent cows from falling into the river: > Solar-powered GPS devices emit a high-pitched sound as the animal moves through a boundary zone towards the water, with a mild electric pulse delivered if it fails to turn around.
    • DocTomoe 1y ago
      So the cow learns there is a 'good zone' or a 'bad zone' to be in. And how does the cow - which now may be panicking - know it does not exit the 'bad zone' by, let's say, jumping into the river? Applying human intelligence to bovines may be misguided.
      • rcxdude 1y ago
        They're not particularly dumb animals (similar to the average dog), generally they do get the idea pretty quickly. (There is a gradient of warning as they approach the edge of the zone, so it's not just suddenly a big shock)
        • BenjiWiebe 1y ago
          I'd compare their intelligence to cats, in that a dog uses its intelligence to please its owner, and a cat uses its intelligence to do whatever it pleases. :-)
      • jadamson 1y ago
        Someone below linked to a company providing this technology and it seems we do now have remote control cows (no panicking that I can see): https://www.instagram.com/halterhq/reel/C_hq8_iSnCH/ https://www.instagram.com/halterhq/reel/C_hq8_iSnCH/
        • DocTomoe 1y ago
          I ... honestly don't know if I should be impressed or horrified. Essentially, they have become cyborgs. Mootrons? I stand corrected either way.
          • HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
            [shrug] Invisible Fence (https://www.invisiblefence.com/ https://www.invisiblefence.com/) has been a thing at least since the early 2000's when we had one for our dog.
• jll29 1y ago
  Differential GPS is already a cornerstone of precision farming, because on a very lond field harvesting a 2cm border stripe (or not) implies substantially more yield (or not). Whether each cow needs 5G we can debate - but usually once a service exists, it generates novel ideas that use the service. It's called "innovation", and I invite politicians unfamiliar with the subject (German or otherwise) to attend my lecture with the same title.
• hommelix 1y ago
  I remember reading that a cow health monitoring in the Netherlands would generate about 20 GB of data daily (location, temperature, how many hours walking vs lying). So 5G makes sense in some agricultural setups.
  • mmmlinux 1y ago
    20gb of data per day on cow telemetry sounds crazy. even 2 id be like what are you doing...