Lasers are cool, and we like them. There, we said it. Why else would Dr. Evil want so badly to put them on sharks? Yep, because that would doubly cool. “Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation” (laser) turned 50 on May 16th — the anniversary of the day American physicist Theodore Maiman fired up the first working laser at the Hughes Research Laboratories in California. The newspaper headlines at the time heralded the advent of the “death ray,” and while military interest in lasers continues to be keen and varied, its in everyday life that the laser has made enormous impacts. They allow us to play CDs and DVDs, they’re used extensively in various kinds of surgery, and they are helping ring up your barcodes at the grocery store. So, in WTP 288, we say Happy B-Day to the laser by taking a look back at the theory and tech behind it, and then taking a look what the future might hold for the laser. Nice.

We’ve also got an update on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, including a look at how the Soviets handled gas leaks back in the 1960s and 70s. Prepare to be slightly disturbed.

Then, we revisit a couple of stories we’ve been following here on the Tech Podcast. First, we’ll hear Cyrus Farivar’s report on Haystack, software that’s been designed to help Iranians circumvent the government’s online censorship. The US government has given its seal of approval to Haystack, and Cyrus assesses its likely technological and political effectiveness.

And remember Latvia’s digital Robin Hood? Using the Matrix-ish online name “Neo,” this person exposed government data on salaries. Turns out that in a time of recession, some Latvian bankers didn’t take their pay cuts…and Neo put that data out there for everyone to see. Well, Neo’s been outed. He’s Ilmars Poikans, a 31 year old IT researcher from the University of Latvia’s Computer Science department. We’ll hear from Poikans himself. You’ll be interested to hear how easy it was for him to access supposedly secure government data.

We end with, what else, robot nurses in Japan. The population is aging, foreign nurses are having a hard time passing the difficult language exams required to stay in the country, and so some see robotic care as the way forward. The BBC’s Roland Buerk has the story.

Thanks to all the Facebook Faithful who have helped us reach our goal of “1,000 likers” way ahead of schedule. Do stop by over there…there’s usually something good going on, including sneak peeks at upcoming show segments! We’re also on Twitter, of course, if you prefer.

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(Photo by the Air Force Research Laboratory, via Wikipedia)

We’d like to know where else, in the universe of technology podcasts, you can find an episode that includes Swedish high-tech skiing treadmills, a soccer ball that stores enough energy during play to power an LED light (pictured), a reporter who “embeds” with some tekkies who want to keep information flowing into and out of Iran, and a WTP listener who is running…wait for it…a global project designed to crowdsource design ideas for rebuilding Haiti. I mean, seriously. We’ve got all of this in this episode of The World’s Technology Podcast. Before I give you the links for the episode, let me just take a minute and ask you to spread the word about the podcast. Tell your friends, or enemies. Tweet us, share us on Facebook, and/or blog about us. We need you to help the podcast grow, to help us reach new audiences. We know we’re an acquired taste — tell your friends to nibble a little bit. Who knows? They might even get hooked on us.

Anyway. Here are some relevant links from episode 277:

• Blog: Sweden’s skiers see high-tech training advantage
• Video: Swedish high-tech skiing treadmill
• Pictures: Using RTK GNSS to measure the cross-country course in Whistler
• sOccket homepage
• Jim Witkin’s NYT blog post on the sOccket
• More on Austin Heap
• Mark Dytham, Astrid Klein and Pecha Kucha for Haiti

OK, so here’s also a link to the new Talking Travel podcast with Lonely Planet that I mentioned at the top of the show.

We’re on Twitter and Facebook. You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS.

Happy New Year everyone. The Tech Podcast is back, with bagpipes. The track is Bagpipes From Baghdad, by none other than rapper Eminem. The centerpiece for WTP 272 is a lengthy interview with Tavneet Suri from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. She and William Jack of Georgetown University have authored an interesting paper on M-PESA, a mobile money transfer platform that is catching on in parts of East Africa and beyond. Suri and Jack look specifically at M-PESA’s uptake in Kenya. Get the official scoop on M-PESA here. They’re not the only academics, by the way, who are interested in this topic. Also in this episode, we listen in to two reports that look at the intersection of technology and politics in Iran. Both of them are by Cyrus Farivar, who has been blogging about events in Iran for some time now. By the way, here is Shafaf, the tool that Cyrus mentions which employs a platform you’ve heard about here on the Tech Podcast before, Ushahidi.

We’ve also got an interesting little story about how some 30 million German credit and debit cards are suffering from a glitch in their embedded chips. Folks are calling it a Y2K10 bug! Read more about it here and here.

And we end with an item on one of the most popular video games going right now: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. Seems that some Russians aren’t too happy about the way they’re portrayed in the game. Not that it stops them from playing it, of course…Here’s some background on the kerfluffle.

Remember, we’re on Twitter and Facebook.

Props to The World’s Patrick Cox for the audio nod to the low tech wonder that is “grit.” I hope you Brits appreciate it.

As promised, this week’s Technology Podcast is devoid of any news, or non-news as the case may be, related to Michael Jackson. Instead, WTP 250 has a heavenly host of stories we hope you’ll find intriguing. At right is a picture of a page from one of the oldest Christian bibles in the world. It’s called the Codex Sinaiticus, and it was written in the 4th century AD. After it was found in a monestary in the Sinai, it’s various pages and fragments were scattered to collections across the world. Now, those fragments and pages have been reunited online. We’ll hear an interview with the British Library’s Head of Collection Care, Helen Shenton. The British Library is one of the partner institutions involved in putting the Codex online. We’ll also have updates on two stories we’ve been following closely in recent weeks. First, the violence in post-election Iran continues, and technology continues to play a critical role. Reporter Cyrus Farivar will update us on the global geeks who are trying to keep the information flowing into and out of the country. We follow that with a look at the violence that has flared in western China, and assess the ways and means that the Chinese government is using to control the way that violence is portrayed. We speak with Xiao Qiang, founder and co-editor of the China Digitial Times. And then we end the podcast with a lovely little story of musical collaboration. The members of Hal and the Big 5 have never actually jammed together. Instead, they’ve traded music tracks in cyberspace, and then mixed it all together. Too cool.

Remember, you can subscribe to The World’s Technology Podcast via iTunes or RSS.