South Korea Revamps Complicated Street Address System

The South Korean government is revamping the street address system with a more Western approach.

Tech Podcast 277: High-Tech Ski Treadmills, sOccket, and Pecha Kucha for Haiti

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This is no ordinary soccer ball. It’s called sOccket, and it’s got some tech inside that allows it to store up energy while it’s being kicked around. After 15 minutes, the ball’s stored up enough juice to power an LED light, or even charge up something else. Too cool. In this week’s podcast, we’ll talk to one of the people behind the sOccket. We’ll also hear about a high-tech treadmill for training Swedish skiers, and we’ll “embed” with some folks looking to keep information flowing into and out of Iran. We end with a segment on listeners Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein in Tokyo. They are architects who are trying to crowdsource new design and building ideas for post-earthquake Haiti. Wow.

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Swedish skiers try to gain high-tech edge

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The Swedish cross-country team has gotten some high-tech training help from the country’s Winter Sports Research Center. They’ve been training on a high-tech treadmill designed to realistically recreate the course they’ll be skiing during the Winter Games in Canada. Programming that treadmill required some sophisticated GPS measurements (pictured), as The World’s Clark Boyd explains. Download MP3 (Photo: Matej Supej)

• Video: The Swedish high-tech skiing treadmill (via Swedish TV)
• More pictures from the global positioning work in Whistler

Online mapping helps Haiti relief efforts

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When the earthquake struck Haiti last week, aid workers and geographers alike realized that there were no good maps of the country. A group of volunteers quickly sprang into action. Open Street Maps has been putting together a real-time view of what Haiti looks like on the ground. Aid organizations and rescue teams are actively using their maps to direct and coordinate relief efforts. The World’s Clark Boyd reports. Download MP3

• Haiti Open Street Map
• Ushahidi for Haiti
• Google Person Finder: Haiti Earthquake
• iPhone app for Haiti Disaster Relief

Recreating pre-war Nagasaki in 3D, Ars Electronica 2009, and A Brief History of GPS Drawing

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On this week’s podcast, we’re off to Linz, Austria to hear about some of the exhibits at annual Ars Electronica Festival. One you can see here at left: that’s right, turn your own urine into fertilizer. If you like that one, wait until you hear the other story from Linz…Also, we hear about the 3D re-creation of pre-war Nagasaki, Japan. And we end with a brief history of GPS drawing, brought to you by listener Brett Stalbaum.

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Feel like you’re walking in circles? You might be…

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A new study by scientists in Germany has confirmed that when people get disoriented in the woods or other natural environments, they really do tend to walk in circles. The researchers sent volunteers into a German forest and the Sahara Desert and tracked their movements with a GPS. When the hikers had no visible sun or distant landmark to guide them, they circled back on themselves while thinking they were walking in a straight line. David Baron reports on this newly published study. (Photo: Jan Souman) Click here for a large Google Earth image of “walking in circles” >>> See more photos from the experiment

Castle Building Gets Medieval, Bertrand Piccard, and GPS Atari Art

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On this week’s show, castle builders in France use medieval technologies and techniques to build a castle…from scratch. Also, we have an interview with Bertrand Piccard, who wants to one day fly a solar-powered plane, non-stop, around the world. And we end with one podcast listener’s amazing art project. He and his buddies use GPS and their bikes to make geo-spatial art!

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