After reading a mention of the data.gov site in a recent NY Times article about how programmers are using government data in new and interesting ways (including an mashup of maps and crime reports that will help a user navigate home from a pub using a path with the fewest reported crimes), I wanted to take a look.
Data.gov is a very well done site. The interface is very nicely designed, and a brief look at the available data makes we want to come up with an app myself. There is a load of raw data on this site -- weekly fatality reports, IRS immigration data, airport status data -- you name it.
Interestingly, two days after the article appeared, there was another article in the NY Times about how the White House is asking all agencies to get their data onto this site...perhaps someone in the White House read the initial article and got fired up with the coolness of the idea of citizens creating value from government data.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Great article in the New York Times about the oddities and curiosities that reside in the main branch of the New York Public Library. Some highlights: the cane Virginia Woolf left on the riverbank the day she committed suicide, as well as William Blake's hand-engraved 1793 version of “The Songs of Innocence."
Check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/nyregion/08libr.html
Check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/nyregion/08libr.html
Monday, November 30, 2009
Got my Google Wave
Yipee! I just got my Google Wave account and activated it. I have been playing around with it when I have a few minutes. My initial impression is that it's going to take me a bit to get the feel of what I can do with a "wave."
I have seen web-based collaboration software before with some of the features (like real time messaging) that I see in Wave. However, Wave adds nifty new features like a playback mode where you can step through each individual contribution to the Wave (someone typed in, posted a video whatever) to get a sense of the history of what happened.
Wave is a work in progress -- when I tried to do playback and then fast forward to the last message of a large wave, Wave crashed. It recovered gracefully though, and did not crash my browser -- it just told me I needed to refresh the page.
I'll try to write up some more impressions when I get more familiar with the tool.
I have seen web-based collaboration software before with some of the features (like real time messaging) that I see in Wave. However, Wave adds nifty new features like a playback mode where you can step through each individual contribution to the Wave (someone typed in, posted a video whatever) to get a sense of the history of what happened.
Wave is a work in progress -- when I tried to do playback and then fast forward to the last message of a large wave, Wave crashed. It recovered gracefully though, and did not crash my browser -- it just told me I needed to refresh the page.
I'll try to write up some more impressions when I get more familiar with the tool.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Google Dashboard
Google now allows you to see some of the information they have collected on your from your various accounts (e.g., Gmail , Picasa, etc.). The announcement is available at: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/transparency-choice-and-control-now.html and the dashboard view is available at http://www/google.com/dashboard (you need to log in with your Google username and password to see your data.)
I took a look, and I have to say that I was expecting to see more. What I did see, and what the New York Times Bits blog also noted, is that most of the information that is listed on the dashboard is simply the kind of humdrum stuff you already know about your account. For example, how many pictures you have stored in your Picasa Web Album and how many emails you have stored in Gmail. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of "this dude is 40, male, and here's the last web site he visited," but there is nothing like that to be found in Dashboard.
The Bits blog entry also quotes John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog who says essentially that the information in Dashboard is the info linked to your name, but the real dirt is in the information linked to your IP address, which Google is not revealing for now.
I took a look, and I have to say that I was expecting to see more. What I did see, and what the New York Times Bits blog also noted, is that most of the information that is listed on the dashboard is simply the kind of humdrum stuff you already know about your account. For example, how many pictures you have stored in your Picasa Web Album and how many emails you have stored in Gmail. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of "this dude is 40, male, and here's the last web site he visited," but there is nothing like that to be found in Dashboard.
The Bits blog entry also quotes John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog who says essentially that the information in Dashboard is the info linked to your name, but the real dirt is in the information linked to your IP address, which Google is not revealing for now.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Munging mountains of data
An interesting New York Times piece this week on training today's young minds to comprehend and manipulate the huge (and growing) amount of data available for processing by computer.
IBM and Google are lending a hand to universities so that students can leverage the big processing power needed to even begin to deal with this scale of data.
The article is available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/technology/12data.html
IBM and Google are lending a hand to universities so that students can leverage the big processing power needed to even begin to deal with this scale of data.
The article is available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/technology/12data.html
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Google Wave
Google Wave is a forthcoming "collaboration and communication" tool from Google. From the preview screenshots, I'd say it looks a little like some other collaboration tools I've seen, especially tools like Blackboard that are used by academic insitutions. The "real time" aspect looks to be a newish wrinkle though.
Like most Google tools, it's extensible, with it's own API.
According to mashable.com, we should be hearing more about this tool soon.
Like most Google tools, it's extensible, with it's own API.
According to mashable.com, we should be hearing more about this tool soon.
Google Squared: Structured Data Search
A new addition to the Google Labs suite of experimental and beta software, Google Squared, presents search results in a structured format, similar to a spreadsheet.
Some reviewers have framed this as an effort by Google to keep pace with Wolfram Alpha and Cuil, two other search engines that present results in a structured format.
According to several reviewers, when search engines like this work, the results are pretty cool. When these engines fail, however, they fail pretty miserably. The general consensus seems to be that this is an interesting idea that needs work.
Some reviewers have framed this as an effort by Google to keep pace with Wolfram Alpha and Cuil, two other search engines that present results in a structured format.
According to several reviewers, when search engines like this work, the results are pretty cool. When these engines fail, however, they fail pretty miserably. The general consensus seems to be that this is an interesting idea that needs work.
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