It’s a phenomenon which seems to have come from nowhere, but in fact computer-based social networks have been around for decades. In this three-part series the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones traces the hidden story of social networking, from the early days of computing and the 60s counterculture through to the businesses worth billions today. From their roots in utopian experiments in California, online social networks spread around the world. In the past few years companies such as Facebook and Twitter have captivated millions of users. But what will be the next big thing in social networking, and how is it changing our lives? This series was originally broadcast in three weekly parts from 26 January 2011.
Tagged with “bbc”
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BBC - Podcasts - Secret History of Social Networking
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BBC - Podcasts - Secret History of Social Networking
It’s a phenomenon which seems to have come from nowhere, but in fact computer-based social networks have been around for decades. In this three-part series the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones traces the hidden story of social networking, from the early days of computing and the 60s counterculture through to the businesses worth billions today. From their roots in utopian experiments in California, online social networks spread around the world. In the past few years companies such as Facebook and Twitter have captivated millions of users. But what will be the next big thing in social networking, and how is it changing our lives? This series was originally broadcast in three weekly parts from 26 January 2011.
Tagged with bbc history web socialnetworks
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The Doctor and Douglas
Jon Culshaw travels back in time to look at the man who changed Doctor Who forever: Douglas Adams.
Broadcast on Fri, 2 Apr 2010, 11:00 on BBC Radio 4.
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On The Map 9: Digital Maps
Who needs traditional paper maps any more when you can download all the maps you need from the internet? Mike Parker looks at cartography in the digital age and asks whether internet mapping and satellite navigation are actually destroying good map-making and map-reading.
Tagged with maps mapping cartography on the map bbc radio 4
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On The Map 10: Maps of the Mind
The most powerful maps aren’t found on paper or a computer screen. They’re the maps we hold in our memories and imaginations. Mike Parker visits a primary school in his home town to compare the pupils’ maps with his own, drawn from childhood recollection. And he takes a trip to Ambridge, home of the Archers, to meet Eddie Grundy and ask him for directions around the village.
Tagged with maps mapping cartography on the map bbc radio 4
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On The Map 2: Mapping the Metropolis
How do you make sense of a strange city and turn a bewildering maze of streets into a map that’s instantly informative to a confused visitor? Mike Parker hits the city streets to find out what makes the ideal map for steering us through the urban jungle. He meets the man who has made it his mission to single-handedly create a new map of Manchester, and discovers how digesting the entire London A to Z makes cabbies’ brains bigger.
Tagged with maps mapping cartography on the map bbc radio 4
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On The Map 1: The Map Makers
Episode one of On The Map from BBC Radio 4.
Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. If a picture paints a thousand words, a map can paint a million. They help us navigate our way through unfamiliar landscapes and cities, entice us into new places and give us a bigger picture of the world we inhabit.
Mike considers the maps he first fell in love with as a teenager — Ordnance Survey maps.
Tagged with maps mapping cartography on the map bbc radio 4
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Simple as Pi
Episode two of Five Numbers, the BBC radio series presented by Simon Singh.
Most people’s first slice of Pi is at school where it is generally made palatable as either 3.14 or the fraction 3 1/7. The memory of this number may be fuzzy for those propelled through their Maths GCSE by the power of Casio (where Pi was reduced to a button on the bottom row of the calculator), but the likelihood is they still recall that romanticised notion of a number whose decimal places randomly go on forever. At its simplest, Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. At its most complex, it is an irrational number that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two whole numbers and has an apparently random decimal string of infinite length.
Tagged with mathematics five numbers book:author=simon singh bbc pi