Mar 17
What the first thing you think of when you hear the word "drone?" It might be killing machines
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Feb 14
It looks like a cultish gathering of smartphone users, and in many ways it is: this image shows African migrants on the shore of Djibouti, holding their phones aloft to snatch cheap phone signal from nearby Somalia.
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Jan 31
Organized crime is famously good at exploiting time-sensitive industries like construction, fishing, and—of course—garbage removal. But revelations about millions of tons of toxic waste buried haphazardly and illegally by the mob are causing an uproar in southern Italy, where cancer rates are nearly 50 percent higher than the average in certain areas.
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Jan 20
Martin Luther King’s 1956 tips for riding integrated buses, examining how design has helped an Alaba
Posted in: Today's Chili
Martin Luther King’s 1956 tips for riding integrated buses, examining how design has helped an Alabama county, building instant cities in Accra and instant skyscrapers in Mumbai, and how two New York architects are tearing down the work of their former friends. It’s all this week in our favorite Urban Reads.
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Jan 14
Construction on the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, the largest church on earth, started 28 years ago in the small Ivory Coast city of Yamoussoukro. Planned by then-president Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who led the country through two decades of economic boomtime known as the "Ivorian miracle," the church would be a monument—to God, but also to himself.
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Jan 10
Africa is home to some of the poorest road networks in the world, which act as a major barrier for trade, education and healthcare. Not for long, though—as it’s embarking on a frenetic road-building exercise that could revolutionize the entire continent.
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Dec 05
The United Nations now has its own drone program. Its first unmanned aircraft took off earlier this week in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Joining some 87 countries with the capability, the organization says it’s just keeping up with the world’s technological advances.
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Nov 25
It’s estimated that one in eight people worldwide live in so-called slums, which, in some cities, makes visiting these informally maintained neighborhoods unavoidable. Although controversial, the practice of "slum tourism" has become a popular way for tourists to engage with poverty on a personal level. But why go visit an actual slum when you can simply stay at a luxury resort that looks like a slum?
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Nov 24
Africa’s Underwater Hotel The Manta Resort: Is That Captain Nemo out My Window?
Posted in: Today's ChiliI guess that if you’re not afraid of water, then underwater hotels can make for some fabulous sights. This new one will provide you with an amazing stay, thanks to being submerged more than 13 feet below the surface of the ocean.
The Manta Resort is an all-inclusive hotel room that is partially submerged. It has a rooftop terrace for basking in the sun and to stargaze at night, a landing deck at sea level that comes complete with a lounge and restroom, and an underwater hotel room surrounded by glass panes, allowing for a 360-degree view of the marine panorama.
From inside their room, guests can view marine life and coral reefs. Fish are supposed to sleep beside it, and there are spotlights to attract even more creatures.
Staying at the Manta Resort will cost you a pricey $1,500(USD) a night, but its a truly unique experience for the price.
[via designboom]
Nov 21
Google’s Project Link fiber backbones increase internet speed in Uganda (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili
Google is creating a fiber optic network to bring faster connectivity to one of Earth’s biggest, yet somehow most internet-disconnected, continents: Africa. With Project Link, the search giant is offering Uganda’s capital city a reprieve from dial-up speeds and shoddy uplinks by offering local internet providers and mobile carriers access to its broadband network, which they can in turn offer to their respective customers. According to Mountain View, only 16 percent of the continent’s some billion residents are online; hopefully this initiative is the start of bumping that number significantly. Still, the implementation is in the hands of Kampala’s data providers — we’re crossing our fingers that they don’t muck up Google’s graciousness with greed and high prices. As it stands though, this seems like a much more, ahem, grounded method for bringing the internet to remote areas than balloons ever did.
Filed under: Wireless, Internet, Google
Via: Official Google Africa Blog
Source: Project Link
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