Sorry to post to two groups, but I think this essay and interview with Usman Haque, creator of Pachube, is worth general discussion as well as posting in sensor networks. Interesting that Bruce Sterling was involved as "visionary adviser".

http://www.ugotrade.com/2009/01/28/pachube-patching-the-planet-interview...

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22025/?nlid=1725&a=f

"For years, political parties have amassed national databases on voters. Now voter groups are increasingly collecting data on the politicians. This includes an ambitious new effort to create a central repository of data on all 513,000 U.S. elected officials, down to village councilor and sewer district board member.

American Solutions, a national grassroots group based in Washington, DC, that was founded by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich but describes its Internet effort as nonpartisan, is preparing to launch a site that will, at first, allow people to enter basic contact information on all local officials. Then future users can enter their full nine-digit zip code to find the local officials who represent them."

There's a good thread going on in the Chicago group on creating a Bus Tracker for mobile phones with the use of data provided by the CTA.

I wanted to repost it to the Discussions Group to see if anyone wanted to abstract it a bit to think about applying it to other cities with transit data, or maybe even to other situations altogether.

By the final comment (as of now), I think they're really on to something good, that would be really useful to commuters:

> We create a TextMark (see www.textmarks.com) so that when
> people send a message to 41411 with the body
> "diycta STOP_ID_NUMBER" it forwards this requests on to
> our little script and returns the next three buses....

(full thread here: http://diycity.org/content/cta-bus-tracker-2d-barcodes )

Are there any other cities with the data that would allow this to work?

Is there any way of generalizing this idea and applying it to other frameworks?

Hey all,

The possibilities of this forum are practically limitless - so let's start exploring them! While we haven't had a physical meet up (yet) this space can be a starting point for Twin Cities specific DIY ideas. Please, respond to this thread with

-what the ideal DIY TC would look like

-urgent (TC specific) issues you want to tackle with DIY tech

-next steps in addressing those issues

Also: how can we spread the news about this project? Like any forum, it depends on a quantity of quality contributors - spread the word!

Hey NYers - I want to compile a list of projects using NYC MTA data out there.

There are Twittered service alerts, there's the Metro-North iPhone app. Is there anything else out there? Big or small? Betas? Student projects? Hacks?

If you know of something, please send it in. Can send on-list or off. (if off, send to "geraci" at "g" "mail" "dot" "com").

Thx

Hi all,

Been following the DIYCity conversations for a while and am psyched to see where this is going. Very bummed that I was out of town for the meetup.

Wanted to send something along that might be of interest to DIY folks, the Times (my employer) is putting together a day to talk about what we're doing with APIs and search, called Times Open. I hope to see some of you there and talk more about what we're hoping to do in the local space, particularly around crime and transportation issues. (Also note two key words in the description "free" and "cocktails.")

Hit me back with any questions or thoughts about the event or just what we're up to in general and look forward to meeting some of you at the next meetup.

Here's the online log and graph of my Arduino-based sensor in New York City:

http://www.pachube.com/feeds/1284

There are several excellent Arduino tutorials that the Pachube folks have posted - http://community.pachube.com/?q=node/9

I've written a tutorial on my setup, which is posted to the site of the designer of the Danger Shield - http://www.zachhoeken.com/connecting-to-the-world

Please post to Sensor Networks group if you have other sensor examples.

Check out what's being done in London to create a global sensor data repository - the YouTube of sensor data - that lays the foundation for interactive environments and remote sensing applications.

http://www.pachube.com/

Hello all,

We are starting work on the first DIYcity project, and we need your help in building it.

It will be an app along the lines of the discussion on TrafficTweet that, when built, will give residents of local areas updates to their mobile phones about traffic problems around them.

The app will be open source and will be built in such a way that it can be easily adapted to work for any city or town in the U.S. (and if possible outside the U.S. as well).

We need:

- 1 - 2 web developers, well-versed in all of the things web developers should be well-versed in these days, specifically working with RSS and APIs.

- a UI designer

- a project wrangler

This is entirely a volunteer project.

Everyone who participates will be credited on the work.

If you'd like to help, write to diy@diycity.org.

Please forward this to anyone who might be interested.

UPDATE 2/4: This app has been designed and spec'd (see spec here) and is now in development. Release will be posted to the Main Group.

Join us @ ChangeCamp Toronto
http://www.changecamp.ca

We'll be discussing DIY Toronto, Hyper Local and the Social API

Wiki post: http://wiki.changecamp.ca/ChangeCampTO_Event/ChangeCampTO_Session_Ideas/...

Saturday, January 24, 2009 from 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM (ET)
Registration: http://changecampto-changecampca.eventbrite.com/

Location:
MaRS Centre
101 College Street
Toronto, Ontario M5G 1L7
Canada