Tech Stream

Tech Stream 041

26 February 2010

Listen and download: MP3

E-Waste: Discarded PC cases in a dump in Guiyu, China. Photo by Bert Van Dijk from Flickr.

In the Tech Stream this week we look at a new UN report into the management of electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) in developing countries.  We also hear from two sides of the nanotechnology debate.  Do we really understand the implications of the developments in this science, and are the proper regulations in place?  There’s more on mobile telco Digicel’s expansion in the Pacific with its new license to operate in French Polynesia… and finally Bajo reviews the film-noir video game Heavy Rain.  More details after the jump or follow the MP3 link above to start listening to the program.

Our first guest is Dr Sunil Herat, Senior Lecturer in Waste Management at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.  The UN report into e-waste,  Recycling – from E-Waste to Resources, predicts that by 2020 “e-waste from old computers will have jumped by 500 per cent from 2007 levels in India, and by 200 to 400 per cent in South Africa and China, while that from old mobile phones will be 7 times higher in China and 18 times higher in India.”

The debate on nanotechnology is an edited version of the Australia Talks program which first aired on Tuesday 23rd February 2010.    We hear from Georgia Miller, Nanotechnology Project Coordinator for Friends of the Earth; and Professor Andrew Dzurak, NSW Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility,and Co-Chair of the ICONN Conference.   ABC Science reports this week on new technology from Japan that could create electronic sensors to not only receive information from the brain, but also manipulate our neural pathways. And we heard about some research from the US which uses nanotechnology to greatly increase the speed of computer RAM.  More great science stories are on ABC Science Online.

Kate McPherson from our Pacific Beat program reports on Digicel’s new license to operate in French Polynesia.  She is speaking with Digicel Pacific’s Business Development Director, Frank O’Carroll.

And finally we have Bajo from Good Game on ABC TV, joining us to chat about Heavy Rain, a film-noir thriller with some very adult themes.