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Digital Planet: 29/03/2011

Factual: Science & Nature

29/03/2011

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, 29/03/2011

UN Disaster 2.0 report on using technology in the aftermath of a disaster

How can we all help with disaster relief from our laptops?: How to take a Polaroid of yourself, in 3D: Digital Planet joins forces with Click: A tribute to Andy October, the Wireless Monkey

There are all kinds of online tools now allowing anyone online, whether in the disaster zone or the other side of the world to compile information to assist the relief effort and even save lives.  Is it now time to join it all up and do even better?  That is the question posed in a report, just out, called Disaster 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies.  Nigel Snoad, an adviser at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, joins Click to discuss the report.


Researchers in the USA have been able to take digital 3D images of themselves and then print it out.  With Microsoft's Kinect they have created a 3D map of their bodies.  And with rapid prototyping machines – or 3D printers – they are able to print a version of themselves.  Karl D.D. Willis of Carnegie Mellon University explains more to Gareth Mitchell.


Click is not the only weekly technology fix from the BBC.  There is also a sister TV programme, of the same name too.  Its presenter is Spencer Kelly and he joins Gareth Mitchell to discuss this new fusion between TV and radio.


Click pays tribute to Andrew October, aka the Wireless Monkey, who died a few weeks ago.  He was one of the most well-known and widely loved technology bloggers and journalists in South Africa.  Andrew October hosted the programme on various trips to South Africa, and was the programme's ever reliable oracle.  To mark his death Click recalls how Andrew October regularly enthused about the positive impact of technology on many impoverished townships and communities in his home country.

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