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We know more about[br]other planets than our own,

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and today, I want to show you[br]a new type of robot

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designed to help us better understand

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our own planet.

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It belongs to a category

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known in the oceanographic community[br]as an unmanned surface vehicle, or USV,

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and it uses no fuel.

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Instead, it relies[br]on wind power for propulsion,

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and yet it can sail around the globe

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for months at a time.

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So I want to share with you[br]why we built it,

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and what it means for you.

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A few years ago, I was on a sailboat[br]making its way across the Pacific,

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from San Francisco to Hawaii.

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I had just spent the past 10 years

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working nonstop developing video games[br]for hundreds of millions of users,

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and I wanted to take a step back[br]and look at the big picture

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and get some much-needed thinking time.

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I was the navigator on board,

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and one evening, after a long session[br]analyzing weather data

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and plotting our course,

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I came up on deck and saw[br]this beautiful sunset,

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and a thought occurred to me;

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how much do we really[br]know about our oceans?

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The Pacific was stretching all around me[br]as far as the eye could see,

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and the waves were[br]rocking our boat forcefully,

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a sort of constant reminder[br]of its untold power.

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How much do we really[br]know about our oceans?

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I decided to find out.

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What I quickly learned[br]is that we don't know very much,

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and the first reason is just[br]how vast oceans are,

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covering 70 percent of the planet,

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and yet we know they drive[br]complex planetary systems

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like global weather,

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which affect all of us on a daily basis,

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sometimes dramatically.

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And yet, those activities[br]are mostly invisible to us.

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Ocean data is scarce by any standards.

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Back on land, I had grown used[br]to accessing lots of sensors,

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billions of them actually,

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but at sea, in situ data[br]is scarce and expensive.

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Why? Because it relies[br]on a small number of ships and buoys.

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How small a number[br]was actually a great surprise.

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Our National Oceanic[br]and Atmospheric Administration,

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better known as NOAH,

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only has 16 ships

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and there are less than[br]200 buoys offshore globally.

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It is easy to understand why.

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The oceans are an unforgiving place,

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and to collect in situ data,[br]you need a big ship

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capable of carrying a vast amount of fuel

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and large crews,

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costing hundreds[br]of millions of dollars each,

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or big buoys tethered to the ocean floor[br]with a four-mile-long cable

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and waited down by a set of train wheels

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which is both dangerous to deploy[br]and expensive to maintain.

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What about satellites, you might ask?

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Well, satellites are fantastic,

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and they have taught us[br]so much about the big picture

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over the past few decades.

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However, the problem with satellites

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is they can only see through one micron

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of the surface of the ocean.

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They have relatively poor[br]spatial and temporal resolution,

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and their signal needs to be corrected

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for cloud cover and land effects[br]and other factors.

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So what is going on in the oceans?

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And what are we trying to measure?