Treed

Props to the husband of Virtualpolitik friend Jessica Marshall, Peter Belhumeur of Columbia University, who is working on a mobile application that identifies tree species based on the shape of their leaves. According to "Digital Field Guides Eliminate the Guesswork," the group has developed a prototype for the iPhone that eliminates page flipping and human trial and error. In the future, this device may be "used one day not only by backyard botanists, hikers and children on field trips, but also by scientists and volunteers to compile data for environmental inventories, or as part of species discovery."