I was excited for our assignment on government data because my Techcrumbs final looks to use large datasets to really mature. I first looked through the cavernous datasets of data.gov primarily in the world of commerce/exports. It was an ordeal, not because the government has done a bad job in serving this data up using a unified UI with loads of features, but because of the lack of urgency govt agencies have organized their data. It puts a developer at a disadvantage because at any point, when the government wakes up and realizes this is the future of everything and mandates the upkeep of better datasets, scores of web apps, and applications will be broken. If you have time though, you can see an unreal amount of amazingly relevant data. This data access evolution is a shockingly important point in our democracy.

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I was listening to this week in tech and they had this great conversation about consumption. I made a popcorn.js media of it with some commentary to show how it is related to Techcrumbs.org and sourcemap.org.

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Check out the demo here: Techcrumbs.org

Problem: This past weekend, the UN reported the 7 billionth person was born on earth. In about 200 years, we went from having 1 billion people on our planet to 7 billion. You might think that space is a problem, but you would be wrong. We have plenty of space, especially since the current human migration trend is toward super dense cities. The greater issue with so many people living on this planet is resources and demands on them. South Asia, South America, and Africa are all enjoying varying degrees of growth. This need for resources puts disastrous pressure on the environment and availability of water and food.

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Create, publish and socialize your own geo map using GPS functionality on device

I have been using google’s my tracks on my android phone and it has been challenging. It has many settings, including how often it alerts you of your travels, and how often it will ask where you are. It is not always accurate due to this granularity of sensitivity and the instability of the android platform. Dont get me wrong, i love my android phone but it is a model of flakiness. GPS location can nod off, even with plenty of sky above you. It worsens being in the concrete jungle that is NYC with its tall buildings. I found turning wifi on while the gps also is on can cause a very noisy track. I know that android phones use wifi to triangulate position, and in their other services, it is possible to get more accurate position data when it is on. That doesn’t seem so with this app. (continue reading…)

1. Document a contentious public event with a mobile device

This fall, i am taking Social Activism using Mobile Technology and for one of my first assignments is “to design (pencil, wireframe or working app!) a Cause-based mobile app, promoting a cause of your choice or invention”. Pixelrights will be a tool to battle NYPD’s policies of stop and frisk. It can also be a way to stop the harassment of people taking photos, a bi-product of September 11th overreach. The laws dictating photographer rights were a subject recently on WNYC’s On The Media and here is the ACLU’s take on it: if you are lawfully on public properly, you can photograph everything in plain view.

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