how technology is helping in the japan quake/tsunami: from San Jose Merc

mar 12th, 2011 CE

japan is one of my favorite nations, and i am extremely distressed by the terrible quake and tsunami that have led to such loss of life and property there. however, their excellent building codes and discipline has reduced the scale of the human tragedy.

here is info from the san jose mercury news about how technology is helping get information out.

Tech during emergencies: Japan quake, tsunami and its aftermath: In case of emergency, where do you turn for information?

In a blog post this morning, tech guru Doc Searls writes: “Emergencies such as wars and earthquakes demonstrate a simple and permanent fact of media life: that the Net is the new TV and the new radio, because it has subsumed both. It would be best for both TV and radio to normalize to the Net and quit protecting their old distribution systems.”

Whether the Internet has subsumed both TV and the radio in terms of up-to-the-minute information is an interesting question for another time. In the meantime, here are some technology-related tidbits in the aftermath of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan Friday, which was followed by numerous aftershocks and a tsunami. Hundreds of people have died, hundreds more are missing, and tsunami warnings have been issued in many other places, including the San Francisco Bay Area. (The Mercury News’ coverage is here.)

• What about the cloud? Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat says Tokyo is home to many tech companies’ cloud-computing services, some of which have been affected by the quake. I’ve read some comments today criticizing tech writers for writing about technology “at a time like this.” These commenters overlook technology’s importance at a time like this.

• Google’s crisis-response page includes the Person Finder, which helps track people who might be missing in Japan, as well as links to other resources such as maps. Google also used the Person Finder after the earthquake in New Zealand in February. In addition, those who experienced the earthquake have uploaded their videos to YouTube’s CitizenTube channel.

• The Tweet-o-Meter, which shows tweets per minute in various parts of the world, is at the maximum 1,200 per minute in Tokyo. (via Mashable) Some relevant Twitter tags: #jpquake, #tsunami, #japon.

• The Wikipedia entry on the 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami is already quite robust. It contains, among other things, a list of other nations affected, and international-aid response.

• Don Reisinger at CNet has compiled many, many links to resources, and — going back to the issue raised at the beginning of this post — some of them show that the “old-fashioned” television news stations such as CNN are using the Internet to bolster their coverage. Some TV does seem to be “normalizing” to the Net.