technology podcast #354

Building a Better Ash Detection System

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In the spring of 2010, a major volcanic eruption in Iceland spread ash over huge parts of European air space. For several days, most European airports were closed. Millions of passengers were stranded, and the airlines were losing around $200 million a day. And there were knock-on effects as well; Kenyan flower growers, for example, couldn’t get their goods to markets in Europe. But now some scientists are working on a new ash-detection system that would be mounted on airplanes. In this episode of The World’s Technology Podcast, you’ll hear about the technology and the challenges it faces. You can see more photos, and a video as well.

We also have stories on the US government’s take-down of file-sharing website Megaupload, and about the effects that this week’s online protests against SOPA and PIPA might have had.

Then we have two stories out of India, one about a new online game called Angry Brides (modeled on Angry Birds), and the other about the explosion of mobile apps in the country.

And finally, the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia got us to wondering about the current state of navigational technology on board ships like this.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 10:21 AM and is filed under Technology Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.



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