Here is an interesting story of how technology and globalization are helping Afghanis learn about basic health. The technology is LeapPad, the point and talk books used by kids to learn to read.
The 42-page interactive books deliver health information through point-and-touch technology and are available in Afghanistan’s two major languages, Dari and Pashto. Users point and touch pictures in the book and the book speaks, incorporating a literacy tool with the health information.
The books, based on Leapfrog’s LeapPad interactive books, deliver information on 19 personal health subjects, including diet, childhood immunization, pregnancy, breast-feeding, sanitation and water-boiling, treatment of injuries and burns, and preventing disease.
Jim Marggraff, LeapFrog’s executive vice president for worldwide content, said the LeapPad uses plain paper as an interface to a computer equipped with a proprietary chip developed by the company. Each book used in a LeapPad comes with a data cartridge, which synchronizes the paper book with the cartridge through a touch-sensitive screen the book is placed on. When a user touches text or pictures on the page, the book “reads” the text through a MIDI interface connected to the cartridge through the computer chip. [Computer World via Gizmodo]
Already due to this evil force known as globalization, many people in Afghanistan have been earning a living.
