Tag: HAITIEARTHQUAKE

When a massive earthquake struck Haiti last this year, the Red Cross managed to collect a total of $30 million in donations sent via text message. Since then, many other nonprofit organizations have tried to incorporate the Red Cross's SMS approach into their business models, but, as the New York Times reports, few have been able to do so successfully. The biggest hurdle most nonprofits face ...

When 27-year-old Kerfye Pierre returned home to the U.S. after volunteering in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, she returned to the open arms of her friends and family -- and a $35,000 phone bill from T-Mobile. In the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake, T-Mobile offered all American aid workers a temporary free voice plan, so that they could communicate without worrying about racking up ...

Since it launched three years ago, Ushahidi has played an increasingly crucial role in natural disaster and crisis relief efforts by allowing citizens to report violent incidents as they happen. Whenever the open-source software receives a notification from a user, it uses data collected from text messages, news reports or the Internet to geographically map the incident in real-time. In recent ...

A week after emerging from his ranch and joining the world of social networking, former President George W. Bush has finally graced us with his 'inaugural address' on Facebook. In a brief video address, Dubya puts our hearts at ease by telling us that he and Laura are in excellent health, and then takes some time to plug his new book, which he's been "writing" since he left office and rode off to ...

A hemisphere still reeling from the tragedy in Haiti was struck again this weekend by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile. With the death toll now tallied at over 700, and over a million Chileans displaced or homeless, President Michelle Bachelet has called the quake "an emergency unparalleled in the history of Chile." While the infrastructure of the South American country is stronger than ...

When the recent earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, the blow to Haiti's communication infrastructure severely debilitated rescue operations. Thousands of homeless refugees who are without access to telephones or the Internet have been effectively taken off the map. As a result, rejoining their loved ones is currently impossible. Students at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design have ...

As relief efforts on the earthquake-ravaged island of Haiti continue, social media and mobile technology are playing an increasingly important role in assisting rescue workers. While millions of people have been texting monetary donations from abroad, many others in the eye of the disaster are using texts and tweets to communicate with volunteers, and to help them save lives. With even the ...

With disease and untreated wounds being the largest threats to victims of the recent Haitian earthquake, doctors are struggling to provide adequate health care in the disaster zone. Clean water is scarce, electricity is unreliable, and the environment isn't sterile. But the aid group Doctors Without Borders has found a temporary solution to these problems. According to Boing Boing, the group ...

Usually, the most we can expect an iPhone app to do is add a few drops of entertainment or convenience to our everyday lives. Few of us, though, could ever imagine the iPhone actually saving our lives -- the way it did for one lucky American. On January 12th, shortly after returning to his Port-au-Prince hotel, filmmaker Dan Woolley found himself hopelessly trapped under a pile of rubble when ...

As our military and aid organizations scramble to deliver much-needed food and clean water to Haiti, other groups are also sending goods they deem necessary. Like, according to Reuters, 600 solar-powered, talking Bibles to the island nation. The Proclaimer broadcasts a Haitian Creole version of the Holy Word in digital quality audio to 300 people at once. According to the Faith Comes By Hearing ...

Despite the reported rash of text-to-donate scams that have surfaced in recent days, it appears that people are still using text messages to give money to relief efforts in Haiti -- and doing it in droves. According to LiveScience, Americans have so far donated millions of dollars to relief organizations via text message, marking the first time that SMS-facilitated donations have been used so ...

With countries, organizations, and companies scrambling to provide aid to Haiti after the crippling earthquake struck near the nation's capital, the relief effort was bound to be a trending topic on Twitter. But with all the positive tweets letting folks know how to help, a string of negative ones flooded the social-networking site, too. According to CNN, false rumors spread Thursday on ...

While the people of Haiti are struggling to find survivors and loved ones, not to mention food, shelter, and water, many of the rest of us are simply trying to wrap our heads around the level of sheer destruction and incomprehensible death toll. Like the tsunami of 2004 that killed almost 300,000 people, the scope of the tragedy in Haiti is beyond words, tears, and human understanding. And while ...

As aid pours from the coffers of international organizations and individuals, and into the earthquake-ravaged island of Haiti, some scumbag scammers are reportedly looking to take advantage of these donors, hoping to make a parasitic buck off of the tragedy. As FOX News reports, the devastating aftermath of Tuesday's massive quake has seen not only a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, but ...

After a dearth of old-school, English-language reporting on yesterday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti, people were naturally turning to Twitter to share photos and news of this horrific event. Even the New York Times does not appear to have correspondents anywhere near Port-au-Prince, or even in the country; the top story on NYTimes.com today was reported from Santo Domingo and Mexico City. ...