Technology From Africa Ensures The Cloud Works When Your Connection Doesn’t

The “cloud” is great for places that enjoy uninterrupted power and Internet connections. But for large swathes of the world, where blackouts are common and connections unreliable, accessing files stored remotely on the Internet is a massive hassle. Forget about downloading Adobe Creative Suite. Simply working on a Google doc can be aggravating.

That’s why the people behind Ushahidi, open disaster-mapping software, built BRCK (pronounced “brick.”) BRCK is a wi-fi router and mobile modem in one, with eight hours of battery life to keep it going when the power runs out. It can sit in an office connected by ethernet and switch seamlessly to a 3G or 4G connection if the line goes down. [...]