Submission + - Ebola-Proof Tablet Developed By Google Set For Deployment In Sierra Leone (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Google has co-developed a tablet device for use by workers battling Ebola in Sierra Leone. The modified Sony Xperia tablet comes with an extra protective shell, can withstand chlorine dousing as well as exposure to the high humidity and storms that are typical of life in West Africa. And it can even be used by workers wearing protective gloves. As even a single piece of paper leaving a high-risk zone poses a risk of passing on the infection, at the end of their shifts Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) doctors on site at the height of the current outbreak of the disease were reduced to shouting patient notes to workers on the other side of a protective zone fence, who would then enter them into patient records. A practice that MSF technology advisor Ivan Gayton says was "error prone, exhausting, and it wasted five or 10 minutes of the hour medics can spend fully dressed inside the protective zone before they collapse from heat exhaustion." To address the issue, MSF challenged a number of technology volunteers to create an "Ebola-proof tablet" to improve efficiency. This collective, which included Whitespell's Pim de Witte and Hack4Good's Daniel Cunningham, grew to include a member of Google's Crisis Response Team, and it was this group that co-developed the device.