Tech Stream
Posts Tagged ‘ Pacific’
Tech Stream 012
8 May 2009
Listen and download: MP3
In the Tech Stream this week we kick off with a look at the new Windows 7 “release candidate” from Microsoft which was made available for worldwide download on Tuesday. Renai Le May from IT news website ZDNet Australia has the lowdown. Simon Goodrich from Portable Content joins me for breakfast and we discuss what happens to innovation during tough economic times. We also have a story about what will happen to the popular .tv domain name should the Pacific nation of Tuvalu sink beneath the rising seas. And finally we have Bajo from Good Game with his thoughts on why some games get better with age (much like a fine wine) while others just get worse over time.
You can listen to the full Tech Stream program with the MP3 link above or the “Listen Now” link on the right. Feel free to comment on any of these stories or suggest something we can follow up in future programs. You can also subscribe to the podcast too!
Unrest in Fiji and blogging in the Pacific
15 April 2009
Our In The Loop program is starting a new segment looking at blogs and bloggers in the Pacific. You can listen to the first interview that Clement and Isabelle have done with Dennis Tokunai from the tubuans and dukduks blog based in Papua New Guinea. Follow this MP3 link to hear his thoughts on blogging about political and cultural issues, some of his own favourite blogs and how you can learn more about a place by reading the blogs created there.
Internet cables under the sea
13 March 2009
Listen and download: MP3
I was checking out Gizmodo last week when the video above caught my eye. The men are loading cable onto a boat in Japan called the Tyco Durable. It is one of two vessels heading to sea very soon to create a new undersea fibre-optic connection between Guam and Sydney. Pipe International is behind the project, which is due for completion in August, and is set to benefit internet users in Australia as well as the Pacific. I spoke with their CEO Bevan Slattery and you can listen to our chat by using the MP3 link at the top of this story. You can also follow the PPC-1 progress at Pipe International’s blog.
Greener mobile networks in Vanuatu
27 February 2009
Listen and download: MP3
There were some new eco-friendly phones on display at the Mobile World Congress last week, including Samsung’s Blue Earth – a solar powered touchscreen phone made of recycled water bottles, if you can believe it.
And mobile carrier Digicel unveiled their ZTE Coral 200 Eco Phone. It also features a solar panel on the back, so you can charge it up when the battery gets low. It should be available in some parts of the world by June.
Besides the environmental benefits of these phones, they also allow those with no access to a mains power grid, which is about 2 billion people worldwide, to have access to a mobile phone. And these off-grid folks are generally in remote or underdeveloped areas.
Digicel are a telecommunications company based in jamaica, but they’ve been making inroads into the Pacific for some time now, and are using renewable energy sources to power the more remote areas of their mobile phone network.
In Vanuatu they’ve just switched 25 of their base stations from diesel generators to solar and wind power. Digicel Vanuatu’s Chief Technical Officer Douglas Creevey told me this means almost a third of their network will be powered by renewable energy.
