Digital Planet

By BBC World ServiceTechnology

Digital Planet episodes

November 30, 2021 PIX instant payment limits to reduce kidnappings
PIX instant payment limits to reduce kidnappings
Last year the PIX instant payment system was introduced in Brazil. It currently has 112 million registered users – that’s 62% of the population. It’s proving incredibly popular and is allowing the 40 million unbanked people in the country access to electronic payments. Unfortunately its popularity has also led to significant issues – namely ransom demands by kidnappers that can be paid immediately. By lowering the payment limit and stopping night payments, it’s hoped this will curb the problem. Silvia Bassi, who runs the tech website The Shift in Brazil, is on the show.
Bitcoin mining in Navajo Nation – crypto-colonialism
In the past traditional mining often took advantage of local people living near the mine, now something similar may be happening with cryptocurrencies. A bitcoin mine in the Four Corners region of New Mexico which belongs to the Navajo nation is causing controversy. It consumes enough to power 19,600 homes, yet many local residents lack water and electricity. The scheme was originally set up with the Navajo’s support but there is opposition from some local people. Mining companies argue though that investing in their schemes will ultimately reap financial rewards for the local people. Reporter Luke Ottenhof is on the show to discuss this story and the rise of crypto-colonialism globally.
AI training for top flight football
Our gaming correspondent Chris Berrow reports on the latest tech to train footballers. Norwich City are the first UK Premiership club to use the Soccerbot360 simulator which claims to replicate real-life match scenarios - enabling players to work on their decision-making. We will soon see if it improves the Canaries’ game.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Angelica Mari.
Studio Manager: Bob Nettles
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: Pix logo on smartphone with Brazilian currency
Credit: Cris Faga/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
43 min
November 23, 2021 Smart speakers used in gaslighting
IoT devices like smart speakers and networked heating controls are increasingly being used by perpetrators of domestic violence – for instance by changing the temperature the heating is set to or the music that the victim listens too, remotely. Julia Slupska from the Oxford Internet Institute will be discussing these new findings at the Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence in London. She joins us on the show.
A possible alternative to GPS?
We have relied on GPS for location services for almost 30 years, but it’s vulnerable to inaccuracy and attack. Professor Zak Kassas from the University of California, Irvine, explains his proposal for its replacement, harnessing the power of increasingly abundant low earth orbit communication satellites like SpaceX’s Starlink.
Mapping sea cucumbers using drones
Sea cucumbers aren't the flashiest creatures on Australia’s great barrier reef, and they have long been understudied and poorly understood. But Dr Karen Joyce, co-founder of GeoNadir wants your drone footage to help learn more to help map the animals and their habitats.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.
Studio Manager: Bob Nettles
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: Man setting home gadgets via smartphone.
Credit: ismagilov/Getty Images)
46 min
November 16, 2021 Distress of TikTok fake school accounts
TikTok School challenge
It’s November so school children in the US are being encouraged to “Kiss your friend’s girlfriend at school”. In September the TikTok school challenge suggested they “Vandalize the restroom”. These are just two of the examples that schools in the US have been dealing with following a call on TikTok to pupils. Now in the UK teachers are facing an onslaught of online abuse via TikTok too. Headteacher Sarah Raffray, who is also the Chair of the Society of Heads in the UK, is live on the show. The fake account created at her school has been removed by TikTok as have hundreds of others, but is the social media platform doing enough to control this libellous behaviour?
Disinformation campaign in Kenya
The Pandora papers revealed that Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and his family have offshore accounts containing $30m. Following the release of this information a collaborative disinformation campaign manipulating Twitter’s algorithms was launched attempting to exonerate the President. Odanga Madung is a Mozilla fellow and is on the programme to discuss a report he’s co-authored “How to Manipulate Twitter and Influence People: Propaganda and the Pandora Papers in Kenya”. So far 400 accounts have been deleted, but with elections next year this campaign could already be influencing the outcome.
AI (lack of) diversity in the workforce
Research from the Digital Planet team at Tuft’s University has examined the world's top AI hubs and ranked them in terms of diversity. Bhaskar Chakravorti, who led the team behind the work, tells us that San Francisco has the lowest proportion of black AI talent in the US. When it comes to the proportion of women in the field, AI is much less diverse than the industry overall. 17 percent of the AI talent pool in the 50 hotspots in the world is female as compared to 27 percent in STEM overall. Tel Aviv comes out on top globally for employing women in AI. We discuss how this imbalance is impacting AI development.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington.
Studio Manager: John Boland
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: TikTok logo displayed on a smart phone.
Credit: Illustration by Nikolas Joao Kokovlis/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
46 min
November 09, 2021 Blockchain’s e-waste a growing problem
We’ve reported before on the programme about the massive energy consumption of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which is based on blockchain technology. Now we’ll be looking at some of the other environmental impacts of blockchain. Professor Cathy Mulligan, Blockchain Expert and Member of the Institution of Engineering & Technology’s Digital Panel, joins us live to discuss the massive e-waste problem of mining cryptocurrencies and how miners change their electronic kit every six months to keep up with the ever increasing processing capacity they need to make money. This issue is not only linked to blockchain tech, it’s also seen in the mobile phone industry.
AR reducing single plastic use - 100 Days to #BeatPlasticPollution
Six out of the top 20 marine litter polluters are in Southeast Asia, so where better to launch a social media campaign to reduce single use plastic. The MeshMinds Foundation and the UNEP is behind the Instagram campaign to raise public awareness “100 Days to #BeatPlasticPollution” and we speak to Kay Vasey from MeshMinds as to how they hope AR will change habits and reduce single use plastic. We also have a campaigner from the Philippines whose own efforts to reduce plastic use are about to be showcased online.
More than a million years of data in the ice – an immersive exhibition at COP26
A new immersive exhibition, Polar Zero, is on at the Glasgow Science Centre. The idea behind the show is to pause and reflect on humanity’s impact on our past, present and future climate. The centrepieces of the exhibition are a cylindrical glass sculpture encasing Antarctic air from the year 1765 – the date that scientists say predates the Industrial Revolution – and an Antarctic ice core containing trapped air bubbles that reveal a unique record of our past climate. With more than a million years of data stored in the ice and computer modelling vital to creating the exhibits, reporter Hannah Fisher finds out how climate data is being presented to allow us to understand the science better.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.
Studio Manager: Nigel Dix
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: Bitcoin crypto coin mining hardware.
Credit: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
44 min
November 02, 2021 How green is our data?
Digital Planet is looking at green tech during COP26. Firstly, we discover the green credentials of your favourite websites with the Green Web Foundation. Can we really make the internet more environmentally friendly? Also we’ll be hearing about the homes in Sweden’s Stockholm that are heated using waste heat from local data centres. And how a company in Wyoming in the US is using technology to change the way data centres are cooled, using liquid and not air, and then using this excess heat for agriculture.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington
Studio Manager: Nigel Dix
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: A processing facility at the Riken Center for Computational Science in Japan)
Credit: STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images)
48 min
October 26, 2021 Online safety laws
This week former Facebook employee and whistleblower, Frances Haugen, was speaking to the committee that’s discussing the UK’s draft online safety bill, legislation that will tackle harmful content online. Canada is working on similar legislation. But there are questions over policing the new laws and over freedom of speech. Gareth Mitchell discusses these issues with Professor Lee Edwards of the Department of Media and Communications at LSE in London who has been involved in a submission to the Online Safety Bill Committee.
Venezuela is rapidly turning its back on cash. An ongoing economic crisis and an inflation rate of 2,500% are driving Venezuelans toward digital payments. Leo Schwartz of the technology news website restofworld.org explains more.
And Thom Hoffman reports on a project in India to put solar panels over canals. Not only do you get renewable energy, but the shade from the panels stops so much of the valuable water underneath from evaporating.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Angelica Mari.
Studio Manager: Sue Maillot
Producer: Deborah Cohen
(Image: Frances Haugen. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
39 min
October 19, 2021 Women's safety online
False information online has left one in five girls feeling physically unsafe, according to The Truth Gap, a new report by Plan International.
One in three say false information is affecting their mental health, leaving them feeling stressed, worried and anxious. Others reported concerns about bogus events advertised on social media placing them at physical risk, or unreliable medical advice that could harm their health.
Girls and young women from low and middle-income countries were more likely to be affected by unreliable or false information online, and twice as likely to have questioned whether to get the vaccine than those in high income countries.
The researchers are calling on governments to educate children and young people in digital literacy.
Related to this, BBC Misinformation reporter Marianna Spring, who has also been subjected to misogynistic online, abuse set out to understand how why such content seems to be promoted on some social media platforms. We examine her findings.
There is more from Marianna’s investigation in Panorama ‘ Online abuse :why do you hate me?’
And Emily Bird reports on robots used to study glaciers in situations which would be far too dangerous for human researchers.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington
Studio Manager: Duncan Hannant
Producer: Julian Siddle
(Image: ‘Barry’ CGI image from Panorama ‘ Online abuse :why do you hate me?. Credit: thispersondoesnotexist.com)
45 min
October 12, 2021 Economic cost of the digital gender gap
Research by the World Wide Web Foundation has found that the gender gap for internet accessibility has cost countries billions of USD in lost GDP. In the 32 countries studied a third of women were connected to the internet compared to almost half of men. This digital gender gap, their report says, has cost low and lower middle income countries USD $1 trillion over a decade. Director of Research, Catherine Adeya, joins us live from Nairobi and we also hear from Ian Mangenga who set up the Digital Girl Africa project to get more women online.
Counting people with WiFi
Researchers have developed a method of counting crowds that doesn’t require complex AI or expensive camera surveillance but rather simple WiFi signals. Yasamin Mostofi from the University of California Santa Barbara tells us more about how this method measures fidgeting behaviours to figure out the size of a crowd and how it could be put to use.
The BFI London Film Festival Expanded
The BFI London Film Festival is going immersive. Reporter Hannah Fisher has had a preview of this year’s hybrid programme which is full of tech - interactive VR, 360 films, augmented reality, mixed reality and live immersive performance.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.
Studio Manager: Nigel Dix
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: Majority World / Getty Images)
46 min
October 05, 2021 Census goes digital in India
This decade’s Indian national census will be the first to be carried out digitally. However, COVID-related delays have slowed progress and there are growing concerns about its accuracy. Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, Bhaskar Chakravorti explains how data will be collected and why the census is likely to miss essential parts of the population.
Getting mums coding and encouraging girls into tech in Nigeria
June Angelides set up the UK’s first child-friendly coding school for mums, Mums in Tech, while on maternity leave. She’s now asking children to take part in the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s “Super Realoes” competition to design a superhero gadget that can make a positive impact in the world around them or a piece of assistive tech to help improve someone’s life.
Unfinished symphony finished by AI
Beethoven’s 10th unfinished symphony has now been completed by AI and will be performed for audiences in Bonn later this week. Dr. Ahmed Elgammal, Professor at Rutgers University and Director of the Art and AI Lab who developed Beethoven’s AI, tells us more about the process. Credit for music: Deutsche Telekom.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington.
Studio Manager: Nigel Dix
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: Getty Images)
46 min
September 28, 2021 Spyware threatening independent media
Spyware threatening independent media
Samuel Woodhams, the author of a report entitled “Spyware: An unregulated and escalating threat to independent media”, is live on the show. His research shows that the current unchecked growth of the commercial spyware industry is allowing repressive governments to monitor, harass and attack independent journalists and their sources as part of the battle against the free flow of information. We ask about the tech that is involved and if it’s possible to control it.
Eating out with an app
So COVID has brought about significant changes in how we order our food – not only have takeaway apps increased significantly in popularity but food ordering in restaurants in a number of countries was only possible thanks to our smart phones. As restrictions in some parts of the world ease, many restaurants are reluctant to go back to the traditional way of running their businesses. Gareth and Bill meet Dominic Jones, CEO of JPRestaurants in Jersey, who explains how ordering on an app has streamlined his business, allowed them to open earlier than they thought they could during the pandemic and how customers have taken to it. Gareth and Bill even sneak into the kitchens to see how the tech allows the food to be prepared incredibly quickly.
TikTok promotes COVID vaccine misinformation within minutes of signing up
Newsguard, who provides a browser extension that flags up untrustworthy information, has found that the incredibly popular app TikTok (which has a huge following amongst under 18’s) posts COVID vaccine misinformation videos to children within minutes of them signing up to the service. Alex Cadier, Managing Director of NewsGuard in the UK, is on the show to explain how they discovered that children were being targeted.
The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.
Studio Manager: Giles Aspen
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz
(Image: Unidentifiable hacker cracking a computer code in the dark
Credit: PeopleImages/Getty Images)
43 min