Home > News > May 2009 > 21 May 2009

Digital Planet investigates the history of the PC

The Open University and Digital Planet, BBC World Service's weekly technology programme, have joined forces to produce six co-produced editions of the programme.

The next programme will be broadcast on Tuesday 26 May and will feature the history of the PC. It will involve a trip to the newly opened PC gallery at the Bletchley Park History of Computing Museum, and an interview with Pixelh8, a musician who has written music using the sounds of old computers housed at the museum.

Hosted by Gareth Mitchell, Digital Planet can reach a worldwide audience via radio, digital and online.

Dr Tony Hirst from the Department of Communication and Systems at The Open University and academic advisor for the series said: "With the spread of digital technologies across the world, we are increasingly seeing some of the most innovative applications of new devices and technologies in African schools and South American LAN Houses.

"Our partnership with Digital Planet will allow us to see how technology is being used and re-purposed in the wider world, and maybe rethink how we use those same technologies in our own everyday lives.

"There is no escaping the fact that we are now living on a digital planet. The next few years will see the explosive growth of location aware devices and the internet of things. By reporting on stories with Digital Planet, first hand, from the corners of the world, we will better appreciate just how far-reaching the digital world has become.

"I'm particularly excited about the role that we at the OU can play in this partnership. With the open2.net team, we are exploring how we can use map based websites to provide additional content around the Digital Planet programmes, showing just how far reaching across the globe the reported stories are. We're hoping to engage Digital Planet's global audience too, and get them to contribute content back to our supporting website, and maybe into the programme itself."

"I'm also hoping that the international scope of the programme will mean that we are able to capture some stories that will be of to interest OU students across a wide variety of courses, from web technologies to technology management, geography and ecology to international development. Who knows, we may even be able to get a Digital Planet news feed directly into some of those courses?"

External links

Digital Planet website

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