Sheep to warn of wolves via text message. 6 August 2012Last updated at 06:34 ET Wolves are causing problems for sheep farmers who cannot afford dogs to protect flocks Swiss sheep could soon be texting shepherds for help when they are being stalked or attacked by wolves.
A Swiss biologist is developing a collar that can monitor a sheep's heart rate and spot when it is distressed. The collar will call a shepherd if it spots that the heart rate of an animal has increased for an extended period. Sheep are increasingly coming under attack by wolves in Switzerland and even those that survive often break fences and run miles as they escape. Sheer panic Early prototypes of the collar, employing heart rate monitors similar to those used by runners to fine-tune their training, have been tested on 12 Swiss sheep. BBC iPlayer - Click: 31/07/2012. From Kenya to Madagascar: The African tech-hub boom. 19 July 2012Last updated at 19:00 ET Viewpoint by Erik Hersman Technologist, blogger, co-founder of Ushahidi Where the magic happens: iHub in Kenya is just one of several technology centres across Africa There's a buzz, a palpable energy, running through the corridors of Africa's capitals and urban areas, and much of it revolves around tech.
What happens when smartphones outsell computers four to one, and 50% of a continent's population is below the age of 20? You have a technology-literate mobile generation unlike any that has come before. This week finds me in Botswana. I've talked to a couple of start-up entrepreneurs - Pule Mmolotsi, who is testing out an Oyster-like card for public transportation in the country, and Katy Digovich, who is creating apps for the Ministry of Health.
Why talking-to-text has taken off in China. 31 May 2012Last updated at 19:00 ET By Juliana Liu Hong Kong correspondent, BBC News Texting in Chinese is tough - the language is as much about sounds as it is about symbols.
Many Mandarin speakers prefer to dictate text messages. Kenyan and Ugandan start-ups make location pay its way. 17 July 2012Last updated at 03:13 GMT By Fiona Graham Technology of business reporter, BBC News, Nairobi and Kampala Foursquare for Africa?
: Mambo Italia's Nish Shah explains to a customer how to check in using the NikoHapa service using his mobile phone "If you go to the big supermarkets like Nakumatt, they have smart cards. Of course you are happy to carry Nakumatt's loyalty card - but you're not going to carry mine. " Nish Shah runs Mambo Italia, an outlet located in the airy, baked dough-scented food court of an up-market Nairobi shopping centre. Bump and mend: The apps helping fix city streets. 11 June 2012Last updated at 19:01 ET By Ian Hardy BBC News, New York Broken traffic light on your road?
There is, of course, an app for that Smartphones are well-established social hubs, loaded with software used to send and receive photographs, appointments, news and invites. Corporations and large organisations have been there from the start, thrilled at finding new ways to push and promote products and services. Now governments around the world now want to join the party. In the US, cities and states have realised that a combination of neighbourhood goodwill, a well-thought-out app and an army of smartphones can revolutionise the way they do the peoples' business. It is called urban crowd sourcing: allowing the public to report problems on the spot from a mobile device and then get real time feedback as they get resolved. Millions of people own phones with excellent GPS capabilities, accelerometers and high resolution camera lenses. The scheme is being copied across the US. Trawling Twitter. How mobile puts business at the tip of Africa’s fingers.
2 July 2012Last updated at 19:16 ET By Meredith Baker BBC News, Johannesburg The Mimiboard software allows users to search and purchase local products using text messaging Across the African continent, internet penetration is low, computers are often too expensive to purchase, and online business transactions can be logistically complicated to execute.
But the surge in mobile phone use - there are currently 695 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa - has given Africans a simple and pervasive means of sharing information and conducting business. In recent years, a few innovative African companies have found ways to harness the e-potential of mobile commerce and information sharing, changing the way in which Africans communicate and conduct business. Uld remote crowdworking change how we care for our elderly? 25 June 2012Last updated at 19:06 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News Willow Garage's Heaphy Project allowed remote users to control this robot and carry out tasks using just a web browser Many of us have strong views on outsourcing.
Whether it's the uncomfortable image of a low-paid army of workers shuffling onto almost impossibly long production lines in Asia, or the offshore call centre worker struggling through a conversation offering technical support, the feeling of farming off work that could be done by local workers is one which fills some with unease. Yet as connectivity and technology mean the barriers to outsourcing are beginning to almost disappear entirely, outsourcing is graduating into another trend that is changing how we treat repetitive human work. Crowdworking is growing, fast. It beckons a new way of approaching huge, often dull, tasks. Heaphy Project Willow Garage is a robotics company based in California.
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