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Digital Planet: Icelandic Geneology App

Factual: Science & Nature

Kissing couple

23/04/2013

Icelandic Geneology App

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, Icelandic Geneology App

The app that lets people discover how closely they are related in Iceland

The Icelandic app to discover how close you are related; the CarePair app helping people with disabilities and animating the conflict in Algeria fifty years on.

It has been marketed as an app that will let people in Iceland know how closely they are related, and an app that will help to prevent incest.  But is Iceland really a country where incest is a problem?  Dr Kári Stefánsson, the CEO of deCODE genetics, says not.  It was his company that launched the competition that gave rise to the app.  Dr Stefánsson tells Click that whilst the app may be an amusing diversion it is underpinned by some serious science.

CarePair App
Delegates and developers gather in England next week for Naidex which has become the event where those interested in technology for disabled people gather to discuss and demonstrate the latest in the technology.  Click is joined by Russell Smith who has developed a free app that unites carers with people with disabilities; and David Smith demonstrates the latest in robotic arm technology.

Cartoon Movie
Each year the French city of Lyon hosts software developers, interactive 3D creators and film makers interested in new technology  at an event called Cartoon Movie.  As well as a chance to see clips of soon-to-be released animations there are screening rooms showing prototypes of the next generation of video games.  But this year the French animated film  ‘Je Vous Ai Compris’ really stood out both for the clever way it incorporates new technology and for its extraordinary comic strip look.  Sylvia Smith reports from Lyon.

(Photo: Couple embrace in the snow. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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