Nearly seven years of covering developments in global technology have taught me two things. First, I remain woefully, albeit sometimes blissfully, ignorant of all the great things that people are doing with technology across the globe. (That's OK, though, as I continue to find great stories to share.)And second, which kind of follows that: tech alone will not save the world, and its ridiculous to think that it will. You need people. Not just "idea" people who are trying to come up with the Next Big Thing that all of us will be willing to part with hundreds of dollars to buy. Instead, I'm talking about people who find novel ways to take some tools that are already available, and make the most of them. People like David Aanensen, a Bioinfomatician in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College in London. He and his team have created an app for the Google Android operating system called EpiCollect. The idea is elegantly simple: many scientists are out in the field gathering information on different infectious disease organisms worldwide. Much of that data ends up in databases at Imperial College. Geography is often of significance in comparing disease organisms across the planet. So, why not devise an open source smartphone app that allows the user in the field to enter relevent information directly into the phone, where it is automatically geo-tagged by the phone's on-board GPS? Then, when there is a strong mobile data signal, the information on phone will synch directly back to the main database back in the lab. Indeed, why not?
Listen in as David Aanensen describes what finally got them to start working on EpiCollect in earnest:
Electronic health records don't have to be just flickering screens with boring data entry boxes. In fact, IBM has partnered with Thy-Mors Hospital in Denmark to trial something called VPR, visual patient records. I could waffle on with a description of what this three dimensional record system looks like, but it would be much better, and easier, if you see it in action:
So, in contrast to last week's look at e-health records for the developing world, this week, we're bringing you more about this "avatar"-based record system in Denmark. I spoke with Kurt Nielsen, an executive at the Thy-Mors Hospital in Denmark. Nielsen told me that the hospital has been using some form of electronic records at the hospital for a decade now, making it "a bit of a leader" in this regard in Denmark. He also mentioned that the Danish government has made the roll-out of electronic records a priority, and is working to combine all the different e-record systems together into a national system.
But, to start, Nielsen told me more about VPR and the partnership with IBM:
What a great opportunity this week to revisit a story I did a while back. Discovery Tech is delving into electronic health records, and the focus so far seems to be on the developed world. Well, as these coders at right could tell you, electronic health records may have even more impact on health in the developing world. These guys devote their time and skills to building out an open source, electronic medical record system called OpenMRS. The project has countless contributors, but the two main forces behind it are Partners in Health, and the Regenstrief Institute. Together, they make OpenMRS available, for free, via the Internet. Anyone around the world can download it, and begin to use it in their local hospital or clinic. Those local folks can also, in the true open source ethos, modify the program, and share those modifications with the rest of the community. When I reported on them last fall, OpenMRS was going strong, with users in Haiti, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.
So, I offer not one, but two audio podcasts for you. The first is for those of you who want a quick fix only. Here's the radio version of my piece on OpenMRS:
And if that piqued your interest, here's a longer version of my interview with Paul Biondich from Regenstrief and Hamish Fraser of Partners in Health. It begins with Paul Biondich giving a bit more background about how OpenMRS got its start:
OK, admittedly, so-called "smart" electricity meters may not have the cool factor of say, smart refrigerators. But Britain is banking on them to help citizens save money, and help the country meet its European Union obligations to reduce energy consumption and cut carbon emissions. If all goes according to the British government's plan, the next decade will usher in a huge roll-out of smart meters in the UK. So, my Wide Angle assignment was simple: find someone in the smart meter industry who could tell me how smart meters work, and what kind of energy savings one might be able to expect. I found Mark England, Managing Director of a company called Sentec, which is based in beautiful Cambridge, England. England in England...I like that. Anyway, Mark told me that Sentec's been around for 12 years or so, and has been working on smart meters, and in particular the sensor technologies embedded in smart meters, for the past five years. I start the podcast with a very simple question: just what is a smart meter, and how does it work?
The World's Technology Podcast (WTP 249) starts off with updates on two stories we've been following closely in recent weeks, Iran and China. First, an update on the use of social media tools in the wake of post-election violence in Iran. Twitter might be enabling the flow on information into and out of the country, but can you trust what you're reading? Cyrus Farivar explores that question. Also, the Chinese delay a plan to require every PC sold in China to come loaded with a piece of Internet-filtering software called Green Dam, Youth Escort. Human rights groups have criticized the software, and so too have security experts who say it's so full of holes that hackers could turn China into one huge zombie computer network.
I have to say, this Wide Angle assignment was a tough one. In my nearly 6 years of covering technology now, I have to say I've come across quite a few people who have very, very cool jobs. But few people with those cool jobs have the drive, energy and determination that the man at right does. This is Ken Banks, and his online home is kiwanja.net. The tagline for the site says it all: "where technology meets anthropology, conservation and the development." Ken is as close to a true "renaissance man" that I've come across in my forays into technology across the globe. His interests seem as wide and varied as his abilities. And the fact that he's managed to somehow combine those interests and abilities into a career is, even to this jaded journalist, inspiring.
These glasses have been, of course, standard issue for any theater-goer wanting the full stereoscopic visual experience. In many ways, they're iconic, especially the cheap cardboard frame versions. But that's the beauty of the 3D cinema experience! Everyone's wearing silly-looking glasses, so you don't feel like a complete tool.
The question we're out to ask in this podcast, though, is this: can the 3D experience work on a mobile device?
OK, so MIT's Pranav Mistry doesn't exactly inspire the same kind of fear that Arnie's Terminator (or, for that matter, actor Christian Bale on the set of the new Terminator movie) does. Then again, Mistry's not trying to. Mistry works in something called the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab. The group as a whole is working on a set of amazing projects that are trying to bridge the current gaps that they feel exist between the real and virtual worlds. Now, if you're one of those people who has watched one too many Terminator films and doesn't want to see the real and virtual worlds melded any further, then by all means do not go the Fluid Interfaces Group website. If, however, you like the idea of a wearable interface system that allows you to check your email against an airport wall, then Pranav and crew have just the thing. It's called SixthSense, an "always-on" wearable interface that is designed to determine who and what you're interacting with, and then proactively go out, scour the web, and find relevant information for you.
OK, so it's true that mobile telecom giant Vodafone knows a thing or two about making money. The company currently operates in more than 25 countries, and has more than 250 million customers. Many of these millions are in developing countries, where things like infectious diseases and sudden natural disasters take heavy tolls. Well, the Vodafone Americas Foundation, a non-profit arm of the company, is looking for ways to help. It just ran what it calls the Wireless Innovation Project. One hundred applicants submitted ideas that harnessed new and existing wireless technologies in pursuit of social good. The idea was to show not only great use of technology, but also a clear sense of how these products could, and would, make it to market. The three winners were recently announced at the Global Philanthropy Forum in Washington, DC.
We're positively e-bookish in this week's Technology Podcast (WTP 241). First, we discuss the merits, and demerits, of Google's Book Search project, which wants nothing more of less than to digitize every book on the planet (Google's not good at thinking small, we've noticed). Needless to say, Google's little scheme has its critics, and also its competitors. UNESCO has recently launched a little digitization project of its own, called The World Digital Library. We'll give you a little peek, and a listen, to some of what the United Nations is offering up, and not just in English. All of this talk about digitization got us to thinking: do traditional paper books have a future? Or, will more and more of us migrate to e-readers like Amazon's Kindle, Sony's e-reader, or...Apple's iPhone? It's a question worthy of discussion, and so we've got an in-depth report on what lies ahead for e-publishing. You'll be shocked to learn that some people think paper will vanish as a medium for publishing in the next 50 years, which others scoff and say that our attachment to the printed page is too strong for that to happen. One question sent in by podcast listener John Kapitzky struck me as pertinent here: "Will the e-book reader I have in 30 years be capable of reading the e-book I buy today, or will I have to keep buying new e-editions of books that I like?" It's a good question for a future podcast, methinks.
Moving on, we also take a look at some very cool software designed to help folks get around Internet filtering technologies. It's called Psiphon, and its brought to you by the same people who track online censorship around the world, the OpenNet Initiative, which WTP has covered before, most recently here and here. We have an interview with one of Psiphon's engineers, Nart Villeneuve.
And we end with Yahoo's Purple Pedals project. Take a look at what happens when you outfit some purple bikes with a webcam and geo-location software, and then let them loose in the world:
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