Review: Click Podcast BBC World Service

Click Weekly podcast on BBC World Service
Running time: 28mins

“For the best debate on global technology, social media and the internet – presenter Gareth Mitchell explores the latest digital news and trends.”

Chummy presenter Mitchell, along with tech-sceptic co-presenter Bill Thompson, look at key technology stories of the week, interspersed with trending topics, all with an internationalist outlook as per the BBC World Service charter…
This is the show formerly known as Digital Planet, now ‘re-branded’ as Click to accompany the BBC New Channel’s flagship technology programme. Trouble is, these two were never really sister programmes and aside from some cross-promotion remain standalone entities. There’s also a slight undertone that the Digitial Planet team weren’t entirely happy to have their established international identity subsumed into a show that only exists on a minority digital TV channel in the UK.

It’s a light, swift magazine format show presented to the BBC’s usual high standards. Sometimes the studio chat and interviews get a little glib and superficial, but as an easy tech digest, highlights.

Most recent episodes have covered:

• Survival in the digital age; The most human human; Jonathan Kent: Hack in The Box Amsterdam
• eLearning Africa; Laura Sheeter: Protei; Dan Simmons: Future Tech
• South Korea’s real name online policy; David Bond tries to go anonymous in his film Erasing David; How to hide your tracks with Tor

Find other gems on BBC World Service Radio. AJS