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Digital Planet: Mapping Covid-19 to your phone

Factual: Science & Nature

Mapping COVID19 to your phone

29/09/2020 GMT

Mapping Covid-19 to your phone

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, Mapping Covid-19 to your phone

Google Maps has launched a new Covid-19 layer – but is it as accurate as it could be?

Mapping Covid-19 to your phone.  Also the ethics of digital communication and hacking into satellites at DEF CON.

Google maps has a new feature - COVID19 maps. You can now filter onto your chosen area the current Covid-19 case rates.  Launched in more than 200 countries the mapping feature could help people decide if they feel it is safe to travel to new areas – but as is often the case with new tech when it is launched it is not as informative as you may have hoped…yet.  Charlotte Jee, MIT Technology review reporter, gives us a rundown of what’s good and what’s not so good about the new feature.

The ethics of digital communication
Can you remember the early days of the internet – how it was going to improve freedom of expression because of this amazing fast connectivity that we had never had before?  Well obviously things haven’t quite panned out that way, says Prof (Baroness) Onora O’Neill form Cambridge Uni.  In fact it’s done the opp as well as damaged our right to privacy.  She speaks to Gareth about what can be done to reverse some of this damage.

Hack a Sat
Florian Blor reports from the first ever satellite hacking competition at DEF CON - the world's largest, longest continuously run underground hacking conference. The idea was to hack into a satellite, change it’s orientation in orbit and point it at the moon and take a photo.  It wasn’t a real satellite in space but an earthbound stand in and part of hackasat – a cybersecurity completion aimed at ultimately protecting satellites from a cyberattack. 

The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.

(Image: Getty images)                          

Studio Manager: Sarah Hockley
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

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