Thoughts on upcoming CityCamp hack-a-thon

[Forest Frizzell]

With our hack-a-thon right around the corner I've been asked a number of times what kind of City data is available. 

I'm having a hard time figuring out what kind of data would be interesting (and available) for developers.  Honestly I think its going to take a little more time to get feedback from the public (we haven’t received any specific requests) and also get directors thinking what kind of data would be valuable to put out there.  I've learned that you have to show them an actual app for them to think about what they could be sitting on.

Have you checked out the San Francisco data page?  This might be a good place to get ideas of what people could use.  http://datasf.org/ If you could take a look and give me ideas I could start hunting it down.

There are a number of app ideas that are citizen focused but doesn’t necessarily need city data sets. Re-route if for example could be done with Honolulu information. 

I really would like to see someone use the code from this Open 211 project that Code for America did.  There is a lot of documentation and the our office of Community Service would be game to help out with info http://open211.org/#developers https://github.com/open211/redirectory

"Change by us" just opened up their code. https://github.com/localprojects/Change-By-Us Their site is a way to share ideas on making neighborhoods and communities better.  Here is whay NY's site looks like http://nyc.changeby.us/#start and this is Seattle http://seattle.changeby.us/#start.

Check out PDXAPI http://pdxapi.com/. This is a citizen built geographical API creator.  Maybe this could be adapted?

There is also the open gov platform that has opened its code for building an open data site. https://github.com/opengovplatform/opengovplatform 

If someone wanted to do the Adopt-a-node there is some data for current locations of nodes. http://www.kokuawireless.com/

If you check the SF hackathon that happened in Sept a lot of the ideas weren’t built on City data, they were built to help citizens out with information.  One that I remember that was really cool was all the ATM's in the City that don't have a surcharge.  There are a ton of ideas here http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/SF2011/hackathon/

So when thinking about putting a team together and developing an app, it doesn't necessarily have to run on City data, it really could just be citizen focused. 

[Peter Kay]

bestest coolest app I ever used was a mobile/android app which let you
look at honolulu city streetcams. was awesome because you could be in
traffic and have a look at conditions ahead. unfortunately it got
shut down. the author is local and I'm sure if the city allowed access
again, he could quickly get it up and running.

On Dec 14, 3:18 pm, Forest Frizzell <fores...@gmail.com> wrote:
> With our hack-a-thon right around the corner I've been asked a number of
> times what kind of City data is available.
>
> I'm having a hard time figuring out what kind of data would be interesting
> (and available) for developers.  Honestly I think its going to take a
> little more time to get feedback from the public (we haven’t received any
> specific requests) and also get directors thinking what kind of data would
> be valuable to put out there.  I've learned that you have to show them an
> actual app for them to think about what they could be sitting on.
>
> Have you checked out the San Francisco data page?  This might be a good

> place to get ideas of what people could use.  http://datasf.org/If you

> could take a look and give me ideas I could start hunting it down.
>
> There are a number of app ideas that are citizen focused but doesn’t
> necessarily need city data sets. Re-route if for example could be done with
> Honolulu information.
>
> I really would like to see someone use the code from this Open 211 project
> that Code for America did.  There is a lot of documentation and the our

> office of Community Service would be game to help out with infohttp://open211.org/#developershttps://github.com/open211/redirectory
>
> "Change by us" just opened up their code.https://github.com/localprojects/Change-By-UsTheir site is a way to share

> ideas on making neighborhoods and communities better.  Here is whay NY's
> site looks likehttp://nyc.changeby.us/#startand this is Seattlehttp://seattle.changeby.us/#start.
>

> Check out PDXAPIhttp://pdxapi.com/. This is a citizen built geographical

> API creator.  Maybe this could be adapted?
>
> There is also the open gov platform that has opened its code for building

> an open data site.https://github.com/opengovplatform/opengovplatform

>
> If someone wanted to do the Adopt-a-node there is some data for current

> locations of nodes.http://www.kokuawireless.com/

>
> If you check the SF hackathon that happened in Sept a lot of the ideas
> weren’t built on City data, they were built to help citizens out with
> information.  One that I remember that was really cool was all the ATM's in

> the City that don't have a surcharge.  There are a ton of ideas herehttp://disrupt.techcrunch.com/SF2011/hackathon/

[Forest Frizzell]

The traffic cameras are run by Go Akamai, which is State DOT the city just rebroadcasts the feed. I've tried a number of times to get the state to open those cameras back up with no success. 

--

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
~Muhammad Ali 

[Jason Axelson]

Speaking of traffic I think that I would like to make/see a
traffic/construction alerting application.

Today my drive to work (Kaimuki to the Airport area) sucked horribly.
Usually if I get on the freeway at 9:30am I'll get to the airport area
by 9:45 but today it took until 10:15 (around 120% longer). It was the
worst traffic I have ever seen on that route. ever. I don't know why
they decided to do road work at 9am which I still consider as rush
hour.

But the worst part was not having any notice of the construction, I
didn't see any notice about the construction on the road itself
(although my co-worker saw a sign late last night). Also it wasn't on
the "Road Work Weekly Report" (not that I usually read it because of
the formatting) or on any NIXLE events (because it wasn't an
emergency).

Was it posted online anywhere that people saw?

Anyway so the idea is to have people highlight their commute or areas
of interest and give them alerts filtered based on their interests.
We'd pull in construction and emergency info from various places
(starting with the Road Work Weekly Report).

Jason

P.S. Sorry for the rant, it was just frustrating

[Frizzell, Forest]

Does Waze have an API http://www.waze.com/? I've seen some folks in Hawaii have adopted it, but my guess is as of now its sparse.

[Jason Axelson]

Yeah, I actually use Waze but there weren't enough people on the
freeway at the time of my commute to give a an accurate enough
estimate of arrival time (initially it said 9:52 which would be true
without traffic).

I did a little digging and it doesn't look like waze has an api,
however their client apps are open source! I don't understand why they
don't promote this further I don't see any references on their
promotional materials.

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Source_code

They also have a nice user voice page:
http://waze.uservoice.com/forums/59223-client-how-can-we-improve-waze-on-your-phone-

I'm definitely going to look into the code of the app and try to tweak
a few things.

A cursory look through the code indicates they're using the
gpl-licensed roadmap library which might explain why their code is
open source. Perhaps they didn't really want to open source their app
but were basically forced to because of the gpl-licensed roadmap.

http://roadmap.sourceforge.net/

Jason

[Peter Kay]

I'm so glad you cleared that up. That's such a no-brainer and
disappointing that access is not being opened up. It's sad to think
they are purposely blocking access so that the camera feeds don't get
used that much. I wonder what the reasoning is.

> >https://github.com/localprojects/Change-By-UsTheirsite is a way to share

> > > ideas on making neighborhoods and communities better.  Here is whay NY's
> > > site looks likehttp://nyc.changeby.us/#startandthis is Seattlehttp://

> > seattle.changeby.us/#start.
>
> > > Check out PDXAPIhttp://pdxapi.com/. This is a citizen built geographical
> > > API creator.  Maybe this could be adapted?
>
> > > There is also the open gov platform that has opened its code for building
> > > an open data site.https://github.com/opengovplatform/opengovplatform
>
> > > If someone wanted to do the Adopt-a-node there is some data for current
> > > locations of nodes.http://www.kokuawireless.com/
>
> > > If you check the SF hackathon that happened in Sept a lot of the ideas
> > > weren’t built on City data, they were built to help citizens out with
> > > information.  One that I remember that was really cool was all the ATM's
> > in
> > > the City that don't have a surcharge.  There are a ton of ideas
> > herehttp://disrupt.techcrunch.com/SF2011/hackathon/
>
> > > So when thinking about putting a team together and developing an app,
> > > it doesn't necessarily have to run on City data, it really could just be
> > > citizen focused.
>
> --

> “*Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”*
> ~*Muhammad Ali<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/muhammadal136676.html>
> ** *

[Aryn]

We tried tying in Kokua Traffic app with the cameras, but didn't really get anywhere... maybe its time we try again.