One technology aspect to the recent tragedy in Asia is the fact that no tsunami early warning system exists in that region, the way it does in the Pacific basin.
PBS technology columnist Robert X. Cringely has come up with a plan whereby Internet activists ("we the people") could bypass slow-moving government bureaucracies and create a global tsunami warning system "in a month."
Details: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20041230.html