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Last Updated: Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 11:38 GMT 12:38 UK
Digital Planet
Welcome to Digital Planet, the weekly BBC World Service programme that reports on technology stories from around the globe.

This week's programme looks at the 20th anniversary of GSM, a website the help promote new bands and discusses the findings of a conference looking at the future of interactive entertainment.

GSM

Mobile phone
GSM has helped transform the mobile industry

The Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is 20 ears old this month and is widely regarded as one of the greatest technological achievements of our age.

The mobile communications industry that has since developed today serves more than 2.5 billion people across 218 countries and territories.

Mike Short, a former chairman of the GSM Association and now head of Research and Development at the mobile phone operator O2, tells Digital Planet about this historic agreement in the history of telecommunications.

NGO Mobile

Kiwanja.net, a mobile technology organisation, has just launched their latest non-profit mobile initiative ? nGOmobile, a competition to help grassroots NGOs take advantage of text messaging.

Text messaging has proved itself to be remarkably versatile; helping remind patients to take their medicine, providing market prices to farmers and fisherman, distributing health information, allowing the reporting of human rights abuses and promoting increased citizen participation in government.

Micheline Ntiru, head of Social Investment for Nokia Middle East and Africa, is one of the competition judges. She joins Gareth Mitchell to talk about how mobile technology can work in developing countries for positive social and environmental change.

SELLABAND

Sellaband is a music website which helps aspiring musicians produce professional sounding albums by getting fans to contribute to their costs.

The concept is that bands set up a profile on the site and post up some of their music. Users can then pledge some money towards recording the tracks in a proper studio.

Despite murmurings in some quarters of the press that it would never work, seven bands have raised the required £50,000 needed to make it to the recording studio.

There are many more bands on their way. Sellaband recently made it to its first birthday and gathered 2,000 "believers", the fans that fund the albums, together to celebrate. Our reporter Jo Keown joined the anniversary festivities in Amsterdam.

FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT

Last week, Perth was host to the Digital Interactive Media Entertainment Arts Conference, which featured the latest games and interactive media technology - from game sketching using puppets and actors to virtual reality learning in Singaporean primary schools.

The BBC's Ben Sutherland gives presenter Gareth Mitchell his thoughts on some of the highlights.


Remember you can e-mail the programme about anything you've heard or a digital technology story you've found interesting at digital.planet@bbc.co.uk

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