Digital Planet Folgen

Télécoms Sans Frontières has sent satellite kits to Tonga to improve connectivity on the islands following the volcanic eruption. Before the pandemic TSF would have immediately deployed to Tonga after it went dark, but strict quarantine rules limit what they can do. As their engineers can’t go out, they’ve had to adapt the equipment they send so that it can be set up on the island. Their kit is now out of quarantine and should be deployed imminently and will eventually bring internet connectivity to the smaller islands where people are still completely cut off. TSF Regional Manager Sebastien Latouille also tells us in the podcast about their latest deployment to Madagascar following Cyclone Batsirai.Could NFT protect our health data? If you think NFT’s (non-fungible tokens) are just the new way to buy art then think again as they could be the way to secure our medical data. Once our medical information is digitised into an electronic health record we have no control over what is done with it. Writing in the journal Science, Prof Kristin Konstick-Quenet, suggests that NFTs could provide a way to secure ownership over the management of digital information using blockchain technology. However, will the companies who currently monetise our medical records be willing to give up access to it? Legislation will be necessary if we are to have any control over our own health data. Enhanced Audio Description Reporter Fern Lulham begins her first in a series of reports into the latest disability tech looking at audio descriptions of films and TV shows. There's plenty of evidence to show that despite the draw of social media and endless other activities, watching telly or going to the cinema remain extremely popular. In the UK for example, figures tell us that even before the pandemic, people spent an average of just over three hours a day watching TV, And since the mid -80s, visits to the cinema had risen quite dramatically to well over 150 million a year before Covid19 restrictions kicked in. But how accessible are these media if you're blind or visually impaired?The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington.Studio Manager: Bob Nettles Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz(Image: Aftermath of volcanic eruption and Tsunami in Tonga. Credit: Malau Media/via Reuters)

The first-ever robotic surgery without a human surgeon guiding it has been successfully performed at Johns Hopkins University. The Smart Tissues Autonomous Robot (STAR) completed a keyhole procedure called intestinal anastomosis – the sewing together of two sections of soft bowel - on pigs. More than a million of these surgeries are performed each year in the US alone and they need to be carried out very precisely and accurately to avoid potentially fatal complications. Professor Axel Krieger, the mechanical engineer on the team, tells Gareth how this is a major advancement in robotic surgery.Singapore Surveillance Singapore often introduces innovative tech to its citizens, but there is a lack of transparency about the way the data is collected and used. As public tech becomes more affordable it is becoming increasingly available. While the hope is it will solve complex social problems there is no transparency over the algorithms used. This means we don’t know the kind of prejudices, privileges, and assumptions being built in. Without intervention, societal prejudices will continue to be perpetuated. Peter Guest from the Rest of World website has been looking into the dangers of public tech in Singapore and beyond. He tells us why tech companies need to be more transparent.unReal City Backstage at the Brighton Dome looks more like the technical suite of a TV studio than a theatre, as technicians watch multiple screens showing the audience and actors in different rooms - and showing a variety of feeds from their VR headsets - because this piece of immersive theatre, unReal City, takes place in both physical and virtual reality. Reporter Claire Jordan has been meeting with the Director of dreamthinkspeak and disabled artists from Access All Areas – the two companies behind the production - which explores if it’s easier or better to connect in the flesh or as an avatar and if links are stronger in reality or could the Metaverse allow us to re-invent ourselves.The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.Studio Manager: Giles Aspen Producer: Ania LichtarowiczPhoto: The smart tissue autonomous robot performing laparoscopic anastomosis. Credit to Jiawei Ge//Johns Hopkins University

Connectivity to Tonga partially restored but undersea cable repair could take weeks. The underwater volcanic eruption severed the country’s only underwater network cable and ash clouds have made satellite connectivity impossible. Professor Nicole Starosielski from NYU, an expert in underwater connectivity and author of “The undersea network”, joins us on the show. An underwater cable is severed every three days somewhere in the world, yet the network has the capacity to usually cope with this disruption. Many developing countries do not have this extra capacity as they cannot afford it. Professor Starosielski argues that richer nations should step up and fund this lack of spare connectivity.Virtual IT brain drain in Argentina IT workers in Argentina are being enticed by US and European tech companies to work remotely for them, by offering very attractive salaries and remote working contracts. Local IT businesses are struggling to retain workers as they leave for salaries in US$ or Euros that can be four times what they are currently earning. And this is what is different about this type of employment, unlike outsourced IT workers in India or Africa, the employees are not working on local conditions. As reporter Lucila Pelletieri from Global Press Journal tells Gareth, the loss of local talent will impact not only the country’s IT companies but potentially the economy as well.Robot training made easy We hear about machine learning all the time, but how does a machine actually learn? Say it’s a robot that you need to teach to perform a task in a factory, or even in your home. Well, it’s ok if you happen to be an ace programmer and are happy to dash off a load of computer code. But at the Robot Learning Lab at Imperial College London, they want to make it easier for us to train the machines - as easy as grabbing the robot’s arm and moving it through the task, so that next time, the bot does the movement itself. The Lab presented its latest work at a robot learning conference just before Christmas. The lab’s director is Dr. Edward Johns and Gareth has been to pay him – and his robot – a visit. The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington.Studio Manager: Giles Aspen Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz(Image: Underwater fiber-optic cable on ocean floor. Credit: Getty Images)