Carbon-Absorbing Material can Clean the Air
A new material that is inexpensive to produce is also good at absorbing CO2 emissions in the air. Hopefully we’ll see this material being applied to the medians on highways…
technology
The Galling Hypocrisy of EthicalOil.org
Mordor It’s really very simple. A front group for tarsands polluters is accusing opponents of being puppets of foreign interests. EthicalOil.org thinks only Canadians should be permitted to take part…
What I’m Digesting: Good Reads from the First Week of January
Government Procurement is Broken: Example #5,294,702 or “The Government’s $200,000 Useless Android Application” by Rich Jones This post is actually a few months old, but I stumbled on it again…
Solving the Common Standards problem in the Open Data Space
Last year during my Open Government Data Camp keynote speech on The State of Open Data 2011 I mentioned how I thought the central challenge for open data was shifting…
Not Your Standard Christmas List
The High-Tech Priests at CNET have published an unusual, Top 10 List that they describe as the 10 technology trends that “keep us up at night.” Most of their tech…
The Future of Academic Research
Yesterday, Nature – one of the worlds premier scientific journals recognized University of British Columbia scientist Rosie Redfield as one of the top 10 science newsmakers of 2011. The reason?…
Why is Finding a Post Box so Hard?
Sometimes it is the small things that show how government just gets it all so wrong. Last Thursday The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac has a little bit on the US…
Not Brain Candy: A Review of The Information Diet by Clay Johnson
My body no longer kills me when I come back from the gym. However, I had a moment of total humiliation today: theoretically my ideal body weight is 172 pounds…
Open Government Consultation, Twitter Townhalls & Doing Advocacy Wrong
Earlier this week the Canadian Federal Government launched its consultation process on Open Government. This is an opportunity for citizens to comment and make suggestions around what data the federal…
The Stages of Human Communication Technology
Language (pre-history) Written Language (circa 3200 BC) The Printing Press (circa 1440 ) (Johannes Gutenberg) Telephone (1861/1875) Radio Broadcasting (circa 1910) Television Broadcasting (1928/1936) The Internet (1969) (ARPANET) Smart Phones…
Open Data Day 2011 – Recaps from Around the World
This last Saturday was International Open Data Day with hackathons taking place in cities around the world. How many you ask? We can’t know for certain, but organizers around the…
StatsCan’s free data costs $2M – a rant
So the other day a reader sent me an email pointing me to a story in iPolitics titled “StatsCan anticipates $2M loss from move to open data” and asked me…
Using Open Data to Map Vancouver’s Trees
This week, in preparation for the International Open Data Hackathon on Saturday, the Vancouver Parks Board shared one neighborhood of its tree inventory database (that I’ve uploaded to Buzzdata) so…
Canada’s Foreign Aid Agency signs on to IATI: Aid Data get more transparent
Last night, while speaking at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan Korea, Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda announced that Canada would be signing on to the…
International Open Data Hackathon, Dec 3rd. It’s coming together.
So a number of things have started to really come together for this Saturday Dec 3rd. I’ve noticed a number of new cities being tweeted about (hello Kuala Lumpur &…
The New Government of Canada Open Data License: The OGL by another name
Last week the Minister Clement issued a press release announcing some of the progress the government has made on its Open Government Initiatives. Three things caught my eye. First, it…
China Pushes Green Technology Forward
China has to confront a lot of environmental problems brought forth by its own quick development, and when China confronts an issue they go all out! Renewable Energy World has…
Open Data Day – a project I’d like to be doing
As some readers and International Open Data Hackathon participants know, I'm really keen on developers reusing each others code. All too often, in hackathons, we like to build something from…
Weaving Foreign Ministries into the Digital Era: Three ideas
Last week I was in Ottawa giving a talk at the Department of Foreign Affairs talking about how technology, new media and open innovation will impact the department's it work…
The Canadian Government’s New Web 2.0 Guidelines: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Yesterday, the government of Canada released its new Guidelines for external use of Web 2.0. For the 99.99% of you unfamiliar with what this is, it’s the guidelines (rules) that…