Database Points To Most Needed Areas in Asia

Newsday.com has an interesting article, 'Database helps pinpoint greatest need, which shows how technology can be used to assist distribution of aid in times of need. Even the U.S. Department of Defense is in on this, providing satellite imagery while Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is using LandScan.

The ORNL press release is here.

While there has been much in the way of criticism and defense of the role of the United States in assisting the affected countries, it is good to see that the logistics support is being done and - more so - that even the Department of Defense is rendering serious assistance in coordinating efforts.

That something like LandScan exists is good in such a scenario. But I wonder, too, where else it has been used - and to what ends. Hopefully, the uses were as humanitarian as in this scenario. This tool could be used for purposes on the other end of the spectrum as well.