On the national front, we had the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), beaten back by a massive groundswell of opposition from major internet firms and grassroots geeks alike. Here in Hawaii, a proposed law that would have required internet service providers to track and save user data for two years was shelved after a similar [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Government'
New Apps Unveiled at the City’s First Hackathon
January 24th, 2012 · 4 Comments · Government, Technology, The Web
A total of six teams participated in Honolulu’s first civic hackathon this past weekend, each developing anapplication that takes advantage of public data made available online by the city. The top three teams won cash prizes provided by the hackathon’s sponsors, and two of them focused on TheBus and its web services API (or application programming interface). [...]
Gov. Abercrombie on Open Data
January 24th, 2012 · 2 Comments · Government, Politics, Technology, The Web
Gov. Neil Abercrombie yesterday delivered his second “State of the State” address before the Legislature. And technology was one of the priorities he singled out as key to the state’s long-term future. He mentioned the Hawaii Broadband Initiative, consolidation of disparate state systems under the Office of Information Management and Technology, and major renewable energy and [...]
Tags: abercrombie·governor·opendata
On to the Hackathon, Maps at the Ready
January 5th, 2012 · 2 Comments · Events, Government, Hawaii, Technology, The Web
This year is looking to be a big year in open data, e-democracy, and Gov 2.0. More information is coming online, and more people are thinking of ways to use it. Among the most interesting areas is in mapping and location-based applications.
Tags: citycamp·codeforamerica·coders·developers·maps·opendata·programmers
CityCamp Honolulu Advances Open Government Vision
December 5th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Government, Technology, The Web
Nearly 150 people — including both city and state government officials and employees, as well as local programmers, designers, artists, and activists — were drawn to CityCamp Honolulu on Saturday. Even though it was the weekend, and even though there was a UH home game on the calendar, it was heartening to see so many people willing [...]
Tags: city·citycamp·citycamphnl
Ready for APEC, But Just Barely
November 7th, 2011 · 5 Comments · Events, Government, Politics
After nearly two years of planning and preparations, APEC is finally landing in Honolulu. This week’s events brings government leaders from around the world (including Punahou grad and U.S. President Barack Obama) to the Aloha State. That definitely means heightened security (which will disrupt traffic and other aspects of everyday life), and supposedly means escalated [...]
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Class on Social Media in Disaster Response Previewed
August 17th, 2011 · 5 Comments · Education, Government, Social Media, Technology
A federal program to train government employees, first responders, and other disaster response personnel in the use of services like Twitter and Facebook got its first trial run yesterday. The Hawaii-based National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC) held a pilot demonstration of its course titled “Social Media for Natural Disaster Response & Recovery” at the [...]
City Launches Transparency Portal
March 7th, 2011 · 4 Comments · Government, The Web
As an advocate for free access to government data, I was glad to hear about the City and County of Honolulu’s newly launched online transparency initiative, “Citizens Analyzing Numbers Discover Opportunity” (or CAN-DO). Indeed, based on the “About” and “FAQ” pages, the CAN-DO site seems to demonstrate a clear understanding of some of the problems [...]
Tags: opendata
Journalist Shield Law Extension Advances
February 22nd, 2011 · 1 Comment · Blogs, Government, Media, Politics
The House Judiciary Committee today unanimously voted to advance a bill that would remove the sunset provision in Hawaii’s so-called “Journalist Shield Law,” otherwise known as Act 210 (HB2557) from the 2008 Legislative session. The law gives the press (“journalists and newscasters”) some protections against being forced to reveal sources or unpublished information gathered in [...]
Tags: journalism·Media·shieldlaw
City Salaries and Civil Beat
November 29th, 2010 · 4 Comments · Government
Today, Honolulu Civil Beat continued its coverage of government transparency and public worker salaries with its latest data set: employees of the City & County of Honolulu. As in the past, the data isn’t entirely easy to access, so as before, a friend has helped me make most of it freely available. But what may be [...]
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