Geek Documentaries

Freedom Downtime

AW — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 09:44:27 +0000

Around the world, computer hackers are being portrayed as the newest brand of terrorists. This is a story of a hacker named Kevin Mitnick, imprisoned without bail for nearly five years. Freedom Downtime tries to uncover the reasons why the authorities are so scared of Mitnick as well as define what exactly he did.

Surprisingly, no real evidence is ever presented by the authorities to back up the sensationalist claims in mass media. But when a Hollywood studio decides to make a movie about Mitnick’s life through the eyes of one of his accusers, hackers turn to activism to get their message out.

Saturn

AW — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 09:37:24 +0000

When viewed from Earth, Saturn’s rings appear solid, but they are actually made up of chunks of rock and ice. They look spectacular, but navigating around them – and the planet’s more than 60 moons – would be a nightmare for travelers.

Bill Gates: How a Geek Changed the World

AW — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:06:59 +0000

The Money Programme’s Fiona Bruce gains exclusive access to Bill Gates as he prepares to step down from full-time involvement with Microsoft, the company he helped found. Gates’s company has changed the world, but he’s a controversial figure, with his ruthless business leadership contributing to Microsoft being sued by the US government.

Uranus & Neptune

AW — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:26:27 +0000

Head into the ice zone to learn the secrets of two world’s which are impossible to fathom. Uranus, an icy gas giant with an atmosphere composed of a cosmic cocktail of hydrogen, helium and methane, is so distant from the sun that it takes 84 years to orbit the sun. Neptune, its vibrantly blue neighbor, takes nearly twice that long. Rocket to the far reaches of the solar system, where a trip to these remote worlds has long been a mystery tour.

Pluto and Beyond

AW — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:50:09 +0000

Pluto is so far away from Earth that it is a mere pinprick of light in our powerful telescopes. Locked in a gravitational dance with its largest moon Charon, this frozen outpost is simply the first discovered body in an unseen swarm of icy worlds.

See what it would take for humans to journey to the uncharted limits of our solar neighborhood and what NASA scientists think we’ll find when we get there.

The Alchemists of Sound

AW — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:11:03 +0000

The BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop was set up in 1958, born out of a desire to create ‘new kinds of sounds’. Alchemists of Sound looks at this creative group from its inception, through its golden age when it was supplying music and effects for cult classics like Doctor Who, Blake’s Seven and Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and charts its fading away in 1995 when, due to budget cuts, it was no longer able to survive.

Nanotechnology: The Dark Secret of Hendrik Schön

AW — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:58:22 +0000

Imagine a world where disease could be eradicated by an injection of tiny robots the size of molecules. That is the hope offered by nanotechnology – the science of microscopically small machines. But others fear nanotechnology could lead to a non-biological cancer – where swarms of tiny nanobots come together and literally devour human flesh.

Sounds like science fiction? It certainly did until a brilliant young scientist called Hendrik Schön seemed to bring it a step closer. What happened next would destroy reputations and shatter lives – because there was more to Hendrik Schön’s discovery than anyone knew.

Hunt for the Supertwister

AW — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:40:46 +0000

In seconds, a supertwister can leave immense swaths of death and destruction. But what if technology could help us tame nature’s most violent tornadoes?

Stephen Hawking’s Universe: Aliens

AW — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:33:19 +0000

Hawking joins science and imagination to explore one of the most important mysteries facing humankind — the possibility of intelligent alien life and the likelihood of future contact. Traveling from the moons of Jupiter to a galaxy maybe not so far, far away, he introduces us to possible alien life forms that face the same universal trials of adaptation and survival as the residents of Earth.

How to Build a Jumbo Jet Engine

AW — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:47:59 +0000

This is the story of the thousands of people who design, build and test engines at Rolls-Royce’s manufacturing plants in Derby and across the UK, making Rolls-Royce a central part of life for the people of places like Derby.