Thursday, June 09, 2011

The Met Teams With IBM To Preserve Art, Avoid Going Medieval On Assets

Humans have, in general, done a decent job of preserving relics of the past in museums. But there is always room for improvement--especially when it comes to managing fragile, ancient works of art. A new indoor weather forecasting system from IBM may help.

IBM announced this week that it is teaming up with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to test a wireless environmental sensor network--dubbed, unsexily, the Low-Power Mote--in the museum's Cloisters, a section that holds 3,000 works of art from medieval Europe. The works, which include paintings, tapestries, and illuminated manuscripts, date from the 12th through the 15th century.

The art is already tightly guarded with controlled climates and sealed cases, but IBM is ramping up the protection even more with 100 Low-Power Mote sensors placed throughout the Cloisters.

Click here to read this article from Fast Company