Ah, the Amazon rainforest – such a beautiful, majestic, and exotic location, and just about the last place you’d expect to see a MacBook Air. That’s not stopping Chie Almir of the Surui tribe from using it to save the Amazon, however!
OS X Daily reports on an amazing FastCompany story of how, using the internet, a research partnership with Google, and Apple’s newest MacBook Air, the Surui tribe is able to track their territory and report illegal logging, smuggling, and other activities in their homelands.
The tribe’s partnership with Google has enabled the tribe to create a unique online “cultural map” of the Surui, including stories from tribe leaders that will be uploaded to YouTube, and a geographical map of their territory created using GPS-equipped Android smartphones provided by Google.
Members of the tribe can now take photos and videos of illegal activities that are geo-tagged, upload the images to Google Earth, and alert law enforcement authorities of problems.
This is just another way that Apple’s technology is bringing technology to greater and greater audiences, and enabling them to change the world in ways they previously wouldn’t have been able to.
Check out the below video to see the MacBook Air in use in the Amazon rainforest.
