Refugee apps

Among the few personal possessions refugees fleeing the turmoil in Syria and other crisis areas bring with them, perhaps none is more valuable than their smartphone. Social media have taken on an increasingly important role of helping refugees deal with the hardships of life in exile.

Customized apps and social media sites provide practical information about aid and resettlement opportunities as well as employment opportunities.

Tech website Fast Company reported on one popular example—a smartphone app and website called Gherbetna. Designed by a Syrian refugee, Fast Company reports that “it’s something of a crossover between a Lonely Planet guide … and a Craigslist-style section for job ads and other services.”

Gherbetna users can select which country they’re in and where they desire to go and find tutorials in Arabic that provide tips about settling and adapting to life in the destination country. But the sheer number of refugees makes jobs hard to come by.

“Few people can benefit from the jobs section, because you have a few tens of jobs and thousands of job seekers,” Ahmad G., a Syrian refugee living in Istanbul, told Fast Company. But the tutorial on applying for a Turkish residence permit was especially useful, Ahmad added.

According to Fast Company, the app’s simple design and interface, which is geared toward Arabic speakers, “have turned it into an invaluable resource to refugees who have reportedly struggled with the language or security features of Facebook and other Western-designed social media.”

Bullet brake

With police forces around the country under scrutiny for instances of excessive use of lethal force, any less lethal options would seem to be welcome additions to their arsenal.

“The Alternative” is a clip-on device for semiautomatic pistols that positions a metal alloy ball in front of the muzzle that, according to developer Alternative Ballistics of Poway, Calif., “decreases the velocity of the bullet and allows the projectile to impact the threat, lessening the bullet’s penetrating energy. The result is serious pain with less internal injury to the body than a conventional bullet.”

The device is ejected from the pistol after firing, allowing an officer to fire a second, lethal round if needed. If the Alternative is not used, it is easily unclipped and returned to a belt storage pouch. —M.C.

Good screen time?

Parents everywhere will be delighted to know that their infant or toddler knows the difference between watching a broadcast of Sesame Street and Skyping with grandma and grandpa.

The Atlantic reported this month on research from several universities that is providing evidence that infants have the ability to discern between video broadcasts and video-based chat.

“Babies who are pretty young are able to pick up, in particular, whether or not an adult is actually responding to them in real time,” Elisabeth McClure, a researcher who focuses on children and media at Georgetown University told The Atlantic. “Some television shows try to imitate this. You see, for example, with Elmo, or on Blue’s Clues, they look directly at the camera and pretend to interact with the child. There’s evidence that babies can tell the difference as early as 6 months old.”

There is a large body of knowledge about how passive television viewing affects young children, but with the increasingly widespread use of interfaces such as Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangout, scientists are learning that babies appear to thrive on real-time video interactions. —M.C.