大象传媒

Social media and SMS platforms are often promoted as tools to collect feedback from disaster affected populations and to increase accountability and transparency. But does it actually work? The Humanitarian Technologies research Project, has just published a report on the use of digital communication technologies following Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Click discusses digital humanitarianism with Ushahidi鈥檚 Juliana Rotich and Ken Banks of kiwanja.net.

GyroGlove
The GyroGlove developed by medics offers potential benefit to patients suffering from Parkinson鈥檚 disease. The doctors have developed a prototype glove that use gyroscopes to instantaneously and proportionally resist a person鈥檚 hand movement, thereby dampening any tremors in the wearer鈥檚 hand. The developer, Faii Ong, from Imperial College London, demonstrates the glove.

Ambulance Chasers and Social Networks
A US politician wants to introduce a bill to fine people who take out their phones at the site of an accident and then post pictures of the scene up on social network sites. John Carney has said he really wants to start a debate about the morality of amateurs taking and posting such photos. Click talks to Tiger Robinson, a first responder to emergencies in Arkansaw and also hears from James Temperton from Wired.

The Europeana Sounds Project
The Europeana Sounds project gathers sound files (speech, radio programmes, environmental sounds) to make them more widely available. One way of doing this is to release them under Creative Commons licenses, uploading them to Wikimedia and holding editathons where participants learn how to add these audio files to Wikipedia pages. Click鈥檚 Julia Lorke reports.

(Photo: Residents walk through debris and toppled power lines in Tacloban City, Philippines, three days after devastating Typhoon Haiyan 漏 Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)