Content about Africa

The Merlin smartphone app has the solution to your bird watching mysteries. Now, Merlin Bird Photo ID takes it one step farther, identifying birds from uploaded photos. Crowd sourcing and artificial intelligence come together to answer a frequently asked question: What bird is that?

Scientists have collected wildlife audio samples for many years, and there are many databases of these sounds in existence. BioAcoustica distinguishes itself through tight integration with a cyberinfrastructure for performing analyses.

The 'knowledge economy' holds great promise for developing nations in Africa, but the right ICT infrastructures need to be in place to ensure no one is left behind. In a world where fast access to information is vital, internet availability rules.

Earthquake warning systems are an expensive proposition — but not when crowdsourced via smartphones. Scientists recently tested consumer devices, and were surprised at what they found.

Hannah Kuper, co-director of the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, explains how cheap smartphone adapters can be used to diagnose ear and eye conditions. Since over half of the world's population has a mobile phone, this technology, she argues, can ensure patients in all areas get appropriate treatment.  

The South African Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) held its ninth national meeting in December last year. At the event, eight hard-working teams fought to be crowned champions of the student cluster competition.

To determine how early humans survived a population crash more than 100,000 years ago, archeologists looked to the Blacklight supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. Initial results have shed new light on the field, and promise significant increases in predictive power.

Last week, iSGTW attended the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC’14) in Leipzig, Germany. The event featured a range of speakers representing a wide variety of research domains. Awards given by PRACE and Germany’s Gauss Centre for Supercomputing highlighted some of the outstanding research on show at the event. And, of course, the new TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers was announced.

Three quarters of the world’s 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions are found in developing countries. Now, thanks to cloud computing, it is the humble mobile phone — rather than the tablet or smartphone — that has the potential to become the world’s most popular e-reader.

Discover how the Brazilian National Research and Education Network is using ultra-high definition video footage of surgical procedures to help train health professionals across the country. This 'telemedicine' technology also enables remote monitoring of patients, as well as remote consultation and diagnosis.

21-year-old software developer Godfrey Magila has big ideas about how to use technology to build confidence in African voting systems. After taking part in a hackathon in Tanzania in 2011, he was inspired to set up his own business and is now attempting to develop the country’s first ever biometric voter-registration system.