Story Archives of 'Technology'

Since the beginning of time, human beings have been making tools to make life easier, better, faster or more efficient, but is that always a good thing? Are human beings happier today, whether individually or collectively, because of telephones, washing machines, text-messaging cell-phones, and iPods? Are there limitations on how much technology we should produce, or allow in our lives?

Guest

• Max Latona, Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Anselm College

As the end of 2009 draws near, the year-end lists will be doubled by the decade-end lists, gracing magazine covers, blog posts, newspaper columns, and text messages. It has been a heck of a decade for the internet.

That hasn’t slipped the notice of the folks at the Webby Awards, which honors excellence in websites, interactive advertising, and online film and video. This morning, the webby awards released its picks for the internet moments of the decade, and David Michael Davies, Executive Director of the Webby Awards is here to run through them.

The Webby Awards: Ten Most Influential Internet Moments of the Decade

Word of Mouth's internet shirpa Brady Carlson offers More Ways the Web Changed Us

(Photo courtesy Hobvias Sudoneighm via Flickr/CreativeCommons)

When a surgeon steps into the operating room, what lies under a patient’s skin is a bit of a mystery. Medical modeling is helping tunlock the unknown with 3-D models based on a patient’s actual anatomy.

Surgeons can hold these models in their hands in pre-op and use them to plan and rehearse surgery, all of which can save precious time in the operating room. Word of Mouth’s Jen Nathan visited one of North Carolina’s top manufacturers to find out more.

(Photo courtesy Anatomics)

Police corruption is no secret in today's Russia, but it’s rarely discussed out loud. Aleksei Dymovsky, a police officer in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiisk threw his career to the wind and decided to go public - on YouTube.

In a series of three 2-7 minute long videos released over the past two weeks, Dymovsky faced the camera and addressed his complaints directly to Vladimir Putin. "I want to work," he says, in one video, "but I can no longer stand investigating made-up crimes, imprisoning people we are told to imprison. I can’t stand crimes made-on-order. I’m sick of it all."

Dymovsky was quickly fired, but his videos have drawn more than 1 million hits on YouTube and he is being hailed as a hero, and joins the growing number of Iranians, Chinese and other citizens using the Internet to defy government secrecy.

Miriam Elder covers Russia for GlobalPost. She’s been reporting on Dymovsky’s case and joins us from Moscow.

GlobalPost: Russia's whistleblower cop is a YouTube sensation