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Digital Planet: 23/12/2008

Factual: Science & Nature

23/12/2008

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, 23/12/2008

Tracking Somalian pirates, Kenyan IT centre, car crime in Brazil, how to hack your iPod

Video blogger tracks Somalian pirates, Calestous Juma's plans for a new IT centre in Kenya, using GPS to cut car crime in Brazil, how to hack your iPod.

TRACKING SOMALIAN PIRATES

Gareth talks to freelance journalist David Axe who is filing stories about the war on piracy from Kenya to Somalia. He’s been spreading the news via Demotix, a site for citizen journalists to upload and sell their interviews to mainstream media. So are tools like these professionalizing citizen journalism?

NEW IT CENTRE PLANNED FOR KENYA

Over the next two years, a new broadband link will be constructed along the east coast of Africa. One person planning to make use of this upcoming connectivity is Prof Calestous Juma from Harvard University. He chats to Gareth Mitchell about a new pilot project to transform his old secondary school into a multimedia centre to train students in computer programming.

If you’d like to get involved as an IT volunteer, email Digital Planet using the form at the bottom of this page. We’ll pass all your messages on to Calestous and his team.

CUTTING CAR CRIME IN BRAZIL

In some Brazilian cities a car is stolen every 3 minutes. In a radical move to halt car crime, the government are introducing a law which requires all new cars to be fitted with anti-theft and tracking systems. Our reporter in Rio, Helen Clegg, road tests the new technology.

HAPPY HACKING

Want to turn your iPod into a drum machine? Or scroll down to play Doom? Gareth visits the 'Holiday Hackshop' at the Eyebeam Art & Technology Centre in New York to find out how to pimp your Pod.

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