Within three minutes of LA being hit by an earthquake yesterday morning, the LA Times had a story up online. How? Quakebot, that's how.
Quakebot is program that was developed by Ken Schwencke, a programmer and journalist at the LA Times. Whenever an earthquake is detected above a certain seismic level, the software will take data from the quake and automatically plug it into a pre-written article. So when Schwencke woke up during the quake at 6:25 am, all he had to do was log on to the Times content management system, and review the article that Quakebot and already written. He hit publish, and boom—the Times had the first article up about the quake.
Quakebot is program that was developed by Ken Schwencke, a programmer and journalist at the LA Times. Whenever an earthquake is detected above a certain seismic level, the software will take data from the quake and automatically plug it into a pre-written article. So when Schwencke woke up during the quake at 6:25 am, all he had to do was log on to the Times content management system, and review the article that Quakebot and already written. He hit publish, and boom—the Times had the first article up about the quake.
