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Find my Phone – Film follows a stolen phone

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:58:26 +0000

After my phone got stolen, I quickly realized just how much of my personal information and data the thief had instantly obtained. So, I let another phone get stolen. This time my phone was pre-programmed with spyware so I could keep tabs on the thief in order to get to know him. However, to what extent is it possible to truly get to know someone by going through the content of their phone? In the Netherlands, 300 police reports a week are filed for smartphone-theft. Besides losing your expensive device, a stranger has access to all of your photos, videos, e-mails, messages and contacts. Yet, what kind of person steals a phone? And where do stolen phones eventually end up? The short documentary ‘Find My Phone’ follows a stolen phone’s second life by means of using spyware. Although you’ll meet the person behind the theft up close and personal, the question remains: how well can you actually get to know someone when you base yourself on the information retrieved from their phone?

How did the Dutch get their cycling infrastructure?

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 13:15:59 +0000

The Netherlands is well known for its excellent cycling infrastructure. But what is the story behind it? Road building traditions go back a long way and they are influenced by many factors. But the way Dutch streets and roads are built today is largely the result of deliberate political decisions in the 1970s to turn away from the car centric policies of the prosperous post war era. Changed ideas about mobility, safer and more livable cities and about the environment led to a new type of streets in the Netherlands. The recent video to introduce the Dutch Cycling Embassy explains this very briefly, but there is a lot more that can be said about it. That is why the filmmakers made a longer video for a more in depth look into the history of cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands. More here: Bicycle Dutch

Amateur Armstrongs

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:51:36 +0000

The Lance Armstrong scandal has blown the lid on the world of sports doping. However, a larger problem is at risk of slipping by unnoticed: widespread use of performance enhancers by members of the public. The Netherlands is in the grip of a public health crisis. Officials estimate up to 160,000 fitness fanatics may be doping in the country, risking serious health problems, which "often don't manifest until years after use". As the international market is swamped with products manufactured in underground labs, even some dealers are getting worried. "How big is the problem we will get down the line from these counterfeit drugs? Nobody knows."

Documentary Film and New Technologies – MIT Discussion Panel

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 14:23:39 +0000

Emerging digital technologies are opening powerful new ways to create and even to reconceptualize the documentary film. How will handheld video cameras and ubiquitous open-source computing change the nature of documentaries? What are the implications for makers and viewers of documentaries of today's unprecedented access to online editing and distribution tools, to an ocean of data never before available to the general public? These and related questions will be central to our discussion. Panelists will include a scholar of digital culture, a producer who has begun to exploit emerging technologies, and a representative of a newly-important specialty of the digital age -- a curator of digital artifacts. Speakers Gerry Flahive is a producer for the National Film Board of Canada. He has produced more than 50 films and new media projects including Project Grizzly, Waterlife and Highrise. Shari Frilot is senior programmer for the Sundance Film Festival and curator of the New Frontier sectionof the event. Ingrid Kopp is the new media consultant at the Tribeca Film Institute where she runs the TFI New Media Fund. Launched in 2011 with the support of the Ford Foundation, the funds seeks to develop interactive, non-fiction projects centered around issues of social justice. Patricia R. Zimmermann is professor in the Department of Cinema, Photography and Media Arts at Ithaca College and codirector of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival. She is the author of Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film and States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democraciesand coeditor of Mining the Home Movie: Excavation in History and Memories. Moderator: William Uricchio is professor and director of MIT Comparative Media Studies and professor of comparative media history at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His books include Media Cultures(2006), on responses to media in post 9/11 Germany and the US, and We Europeans? Media, New Collectivities and Europe (2009). by mit.edu

Attack of the Drones and Robots – The Future of War?

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 07:18:02 +0000

The US government’s growing reliance on aerial drones to pursue its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere is proving controversial – as evidenced by the international reaction to recent drone missile attacks along the border with Pakistan. But Barack Obama’s administration is undeterred, favouring the technology more and more because it reduces the need for American troops in those countries and the risk of politically unpalatable casualties. “He probably thinks this is already a controversial war,” says Christ Klep, an international relations analysts at the University of Utrecht. “I’d better not endanger my pilots and my special forces, so what else do I have? Unmanned aerial vehicles? Deploy them.” But the strategy is giving rise to anxieties that conflict is becoming just a big computer game, in which ‘desk pilots’ in air conditioned bunkers far from the battlefield can kill a few enemy fighters and then go home to their families, remote from the human consequences of their actions or the anguish of associated civilian casualties. Nevertheless, Ko Colijn, a security expert at the prestigious Clingendael Institute, says that the technology is here to stay. “In a way the Americans reached a turning point in 2009, 2010. They trained more screen pilots than pilots physically inside an aircraft. And they purchased more unmanned planes than manned ones, which is not surprising since they’re much cheaper,” he says. However the Americans are not the only ones using drones. More than 40 countries are believed to be working with unmanned aircraft and even Iran claims to be developing its own version – perhaps based on a captured US spy drone it downed last year and then proudly displayed to the media. Nor are the current crop of unmanned military aircraft the only manifestation of this disturbing new trend. Already in production are aerial drones that can independently acquire and attack targets or work together in swarms over hostile territory and earthbound battlefield drones that can either accompany ground troops or be sent alone into especially dangerous areas. Some commentators fear it all adds up to a new tech-driven arms race. The use of drones is becoming more widespread in civilian circles too – not least as a key law and order tool in the fight against crime. In June this year, for example, police in the British city of Manchester used one to track down a suspected car thief; in the Netherlands an arsonist was caught after being identified on a drone camera. And in Zurich, Switzerland, scientists have been developing flying robots for use in the construction industry. In demonstrations they will happily show how a few small drones, working at impressive speed, can lift heavy concrete blocks into place on a complex tower structure – a process that would otherwise necessitate scaffolding and dozens of human workers. But the technology also gives rise to worrying questions about snooping and invasion of privacy – and not merely because of the actions of government. With private companies in the US and Europe now developing cheap aerial drones that can be controlled with the kind of software used in smart phones, pilotless aircraft just a couple of feet across may soon be commercially available for a few hundred dollars. Imagine then, the images that a paparazzi photographer could obtain with a camera drone able to fly over high walls or hover outside windows set atop a multi-storey building. This film, from Dutch filmmakers Vincent Verweij, Fred Sengers and KRO, looks at the development and use of these extraordinary machines and ask where their use might lead.

Design the New Business

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 14:25:35 +0000

Design and business can no longer be thought of as distinct activities with individual goals. Design the New Business is a film dedicated to investigating how designers and businesspeople are working together in new ways to solve the wicked problems facing business today. The short documentary examines how they are joining forces by bringing together an international collection of design service providers, education experts and businesses that have incorporated design as a part of their core approach. Design the New Business features inspiring case studies and insightful discussions, helping to illustrate the state of the relationship and how it needs to continue evolving to meet tomorrow's challenges. This film is a Zilver Innovation initiative, and was created by 6 students from the Master in Strategic Product Design at the TU Delft in The Netherlands. with English subtitles

Building the Perfect Bug

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:16:33 +0000

What takes precedence - medical understanding of a flu virus that theoretically could one day mutate and prove deadly to much of the world's population, or the importance of keeping such knowledge out of the hands of people who could use it to harm others? It might seem like an academic question but it assumed significance recently because scientists from the Netherlands and the US have engineered a version of the H5N1 bird flu virus that can be transmitted atmospherically. Until now, the virus only passes on to humans via direct physical contact with infected birds - particularly by eating poultry ssuch as chickens, ducks and geese - which has allowed public health officials to keep outbreaks under control. Although the number of people who have fallen sick and died has been relatively small, scientists have long been concerned about the much more serious consequences if the H5N1 virus ever mutated into an airborne form. So in an attempt to work out how that might happen, and to formulate a scientific and medical response, researchers mutated the new strain of the bug in the laboratory with the intention of publishing their results so that others could study it too. But their work has divided the scientific community and alarmed global security agencies concerned about bioterrorism. The fear is that if the new variant of H5N1 got out of the laboratory, or the knowledge of how it was engineered was obtained by bio-terrorists bent on killing a great many people, the results could be devastating.

CITYHOPPER+

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:59:05 +0000

Over the past year Sven Boekhorst and his team have been working on a different approach on how they could grab everyone's attention, both inside the skate world as well as outside our cozy realm. What they came up with was a project called 'CityHopper'. In an attempt to take things to a different level the outcome truly shines as unique. Sven was really open to letting us in on this little secret that he had been hiding. A documentary starring Dutch Rollerblader Sven Boekhorst, his brother Lars Boekhorst and Tim Haars, both known for their roles in the Dutch films New Kids Turbo and New Kids Nitro. Sven brings his ramp to several high profile spots in Holland to test his new Rollerblade SB Pro skate, and to entertain the masses! He destroyed highly recognizable touristic locations in the Netherlands, such as the Red Light District, the Dam Square and the Leidsesquare in Amsterdam, as well as many other famous landmarks in the Netherlands. All while trying not to get kicked out and arrested. Trying not to break his neck. Trying not to get caught by hookers and pimps chasing after him. You can imagine the shoots were 'lively'. To use an understatement.

I am Dutch, am I?

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:42:45 +0000

Sofia immigrated illegally from Colombia to the Netherlands when she was 2 years old. Today - 21 years later - she is still living in the Netherlands without a permit, facing the daily challenges of being an illegal immigrant. But she is not giving up and works on her dreams: Becoming a legal citizen of the Netherlands and establishing her own catering business.

Global diabetes numbers at all-time high

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:58:44 +0000

The number of adults who have been diagnosed with diabetes worldwide has more than doubled since 1980 to 347 million, a far larger number than previously thought, a new study has found. An international team of researchers working with the World Health Organisation has found that the rates of diabetes have either risen or, at best, remained essentially the same all over the world in the past 30 years, the study, published in The Lancet journal, says. The estimated number of diabetics is far higher than a previous projection, which put the number closer to 285 million. Of the 347 million with diabetes, 138 million live in China and India, with another 36 million in the United States and Russia. Type 2, the most common type of diabetes, is strongly associated with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. "Diabetes is becoming more common almost everywhere in the world," said Majid Ezzati, from Britain's Imperial College London, who led the study along with Goodarz Danaei, from the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States. "Unless we develop better programmes for detecting people with elevated blood sugar and helping them to improve their diet and physical activity and control their weight, diabetes will inevitably continue to impose a major burden on health systems around the world," Danaei said in a joint statement. People who suffer from diabetes have inadequate blood sugar control, an affliction that can lead to serious complications, including heart disease, stroke, kidney or nerve damage and blindness. According to experts, high blood glucose and diabetes lead to around three million deaths around the world every year, a number that will continue to rise as the number of people affected increases. However, Ahmed Bakr a doctor at the Ahli hospital in Qatar, said medical treatments are improving everyday."We hope the cure can come with genetic engineering," he told Al Jazeera. "If science can help to help you produce insulin, you might really reach the cure. A cure might happen in the future." Dozens of different treatments for the disease are available on the market in both pill and injection form. Global sales of the medicines hit $35 billion last year, and could rise to as high as $48 million by 2015, according to IMS Health, a drug research firm. New research that is due to be presented this weekend at the American Diabetes Association's annual meeting in San Diego will focus on experimental drugs and methods of combining classes of medication to better control blood sugar. A new type of diabetes pill being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca has proven to be effective at fighting the disease, according to a new two-year study, but the companies said higher rates of bladder and breast cancers were seen in users of the drug. At least 1.4 per cent of patients treated with Dapagliflozin developed some type of cancer, compared with 1.3 per cent of control group patients, said Elisabeth Bjork, vice president of development for Dapagliflozin at AstraZeneca. "This is a chronic, progressive condition," said Dennis Urbaniak, vice president of drug-maker Sanofi's diabetes division. "What we are most worried about is the number of people out there with diabetes that is not optimally controlled." Diabetes has proven to be a booming market for drug manufacturers like Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Merck and Takeda. For the Lancet study, the largest of its kind for diabetes, researchers analysed fasting plasma glucose (FPG) data for 2.7 million participants aged 25 and over across the world, using advanced statistical methods to estimate the prevalence of the disease. They found that between 1980 and 2008, the number of adults with the disease rose from 153 million to 347 million. Seventy per cent of the rise was due to population growth and ageing, with the other 30 per cent due to higher prevalence, they said. The proportion of adults with diabetes by gender also increased, with 9.8 per cent of men and 9.2 per cent of women in 2008 affected by the disease, compared to 8.3 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively in 1980. Island countries in the Pacific now have the highest diabetes levels in the world, the study found. In the Marshall Islands, a third of all women and a quarter of all men have diabetes. The rise was high in North America, but relatively low in western Europe. Diabetes and glucose levels were highest in United States, Greenland, Malta, New Zealand and Spain, and lowest in the Netherlands, Austria and France. The region with the lowest glucose levels was sub-Saharan Africa, followed by east and southeast Asia.