Tag: HAITI

Documenting and counting all of the rapes and sexual assaults occurring in Haiti is difficult, if not impossible. The U.N. has estimated that as many as 50-percent of the women living in the country's shantytowns have been subject to assault -- although some critics (including the Telegraph's Brendan O'Neill) have claimed that figure is a vast overstatement. The trouble is though, the crimes ...

When a massive earthquake struck Haiti last this year, the Red Cross managed to collect a total of $30 million in donations sent via text message. Since then, many other nonprofit organizations have tried to incorporate the Red Cross's SMS approach into their business models, but, as the New York Times reports, few have been able to do so successfully. The biggest hurdle most nonprofits face ...

When 27-year-old Kerfye Pierre returned home to the U.S. after volunteering in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, she returned to the open arms of her friends and family -- and a $35,000 phone bill from T-Mobile. In the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake, T-Mobile offered all American aid workers a temporary free voice plan, so that they could communicate without worrying about racking up ...

Since it launched three years ago, Ushahidi has played an increasingly crucial role in natural disaster and crisis relief efforts by allowing citizens to report violent incidents as they happen. Whenever the open-source software receives a notification from a user, it uses data collected from text messages, news reports or the Internet to geographically map the incident in real-time. In recent ...

A week after emerging from his ranch and joining the world of social networking, former President George W. Bush has finally graced us with his 'inaugural address' on Facebook. In a brief video address, Dubya puts our hearts at ease by telling us that he and Laura are in excellent health, and then takes some time to plug his new book, which he's been "writing" since he left office and rode off to ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... ChatRoulette, the spontaneous online video interaction service, has exploded in popularity but has also given rise to an epidemic of exaggeration and hyperbole. Worried that children will be exposed to sexual deviants, various organizations are labeling the site as a "predator's paradise." But, there's one easy solution to that ...

A hemisphere still reeling from the tragedy in Haiti was struck again this weekend by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile. With the death toll now tallied at over 700, and over a million Chileans displaced or homeless, President Michelle Bachelet has called the quake "an emergency unparalleled in the history of Chile." While the infrastructure of the South American country is stronger than ...

As Monday morning quarterbacks around the world continue to discuss the structural, long-term steps that could've been taken to mitigate the enormous damage inflicted upon Haiti, a group of engineering students in India have designed a new robot that may help dampen the effects of an earthquake in the short-term. Inspired by the horror they saw unfurl in Haiti, students from JT Engineering ...

When the recent earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, the blow to Haiti's communication infrastructure severely debilitated rescue operations. Thousands of homeless refugees who are without access to telephones or the Internet have been effectively taken off the map. As a result, rejoining their loved ones is currently impossible. Students at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design have ...

If you thought text messaging was just the most recent way to fill your life with regret, you'll be happy to know the innovation is doing some good. The ease, speed, and relatively low cost of texting has made it an ideal tool for grassroots organization. It has proven particularly useful in the movement for immigration reform, as many activists and beneficiaries living illegally in the U.S. have ...

As relief efforts on the earthquake-ravaged island of Haiti continue, social media and mobile technology are playing an increasingly important role in assisting rescue workers. While millions of people have been texting monetary donations from abroad, many others in the eye of the disaster are using texts and tweets to communicate with volunteers, and to help them save lives. With even the ...

Sometimes, technology can actually bring us closer to our fellow man, rather than isolate us, as critics often claim it does. Google illustrated this perfectly by using constantly updated imagery from powerful satellites to give us perspective on the scope of the destruction in Haiti. Now CNN, with the help of Immersive Media, is offering the same unfiltered glimpse into the tragedy, from a ...

With disease and untreated wounds being the largest threats to victims of the recent Haitian earthquake, doctors are struggling to provide adequate health care in the disaster zone. Clean water is scarce, electricity is unreliable, and the environment isn't sterile. But the aid group Doctors Without Borders has found a temporary solution to these problems. According to Boing Boing, the group ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Man, free-market competition is awesome. Verizon has already made some smartphone noise with its announcement that it would offer Google Maps navigation as a free, default service on the Droid phone. Nokia is following that lead and will also be providing a free, global navigation system with all of its smartphones. [From: ...

Usually, the most we can expect an iPhone app to do is add a few drops of entertainment or convenience to our everyday lives. Few of us, though, could ever imagine the iPhone actually saving our lives -- the way it did for one lucky American. On January 12th, shortly after returning to his Port-au-Prince hotel, filmmaker Dan Woolley found himself hopelessly trapped under a pile of rubble when ...