As a new technological era dawns on the marine industry, boat owners will soon be able to manoeuvre vessels through their tablet computer or smartphone device from the comfort of their cabin.
A local marine software engineering cluster named Marsec-XL has launched a standard computer software platform that will enable owners to remotely navigate their vessels and control onboard facilities.
This revolutionary Maltese technology is the first open reference architecture for the marine industry, project leader Zak Borg said, as the nine-foot Demon-strator whizzed by in the water.
The boat, painted a zesty orange, runs on Marssa (Marine Software Architecture) and can be manoeuvred by devices, such as a Windows 7 mobile, connected through Wifi to the onboard computer system that controls its two electric engines as well as the underwater lights.
The platform software, Marssa, can already be downloaded for free and the equipment to be installed on the vessel can be bought from any hardware distributor. This means people can actually save up to 80 per cent of the amount they would have had to spend on a conventional system, Mr Borg added.
Marssa was developed through open source software, which is software whose source code is made public, is copyable and modifiable and develops through community cooperation.
The idea of Marssa, which is expected to start being installed on super yachts by 2013, was launched in February and the team, made up of some 10 Maltese people and 75 foreign contributors, breathed life into Demon-strator over the past seven months.
This commercial initiative has generated interest from the US Navy, Google and Microsoft, who will be present during the Isle of Open Source 2011 conference to be held next week in Kalkara.
Live demonstrations of working prototypes based on open technologies developed in Malta, including Marssa, will be on show between October 20 and 21 at Villa Bighi (www.ioos2011.com).
Marsec-XL CEO Geir Fagerhus said Marssa was being marketed at Silicon Valley and in August he was asked to present the software to the US Navy Base in San Diego, which has embraced similar technology on a military level since the mid-1990s.
www.marssa.org