Blogging the Aloha State and Beyond
StoryTree, the app startup co-founded by Hawaii-born Matt Sullivan (@MattHawaii), has recently released two new complementary apps. The first, SimplePrints [iTunes] helps you easily turn your photos into printed books. The second, SleepyTime Photos [iTunes], is “a playful way to have a little fun with your child while they are asleep.” Sullivan...
Capping off a historic year of government transformation and grassroots innovation, the first HON*CELERATOR competition aims to inspire the best apps and online tools that use open data to improve the day-to-day lives of Honolulu residents. Local software developers, designers, and entrepreneurs are being encouraged to tap into a growing...
Last year, Hawaii-based consulting engineering firm Oceanit showed off an iPhone app that it had developed to help Hawaii State Civil Defense speed up disaster documentation. Dubbed MERCI, or Mobile Emergency Response and Command Interface, the app is designed to facilitate rapid assessments following a natural disaster, allowing responders to collect text...
Google announced yesterday the first underwater imagery in Google Maps. And among the locations you can explore are Hanauma Bay on O’ahu, and Molokini crater off Maui. Evan Rapoport, former island resident and now Google employee, wrote: “This is definitely the coolest thing you’ve seen in a long time. You can...
The new Data.Honolulu.gov site takes the city’s transparency efforts “to the next level,” expanding upon the “CAN-DO” portal it unveiled last March.
When my friend and fellow geek Burt Lum suggested we start a local chapter of Hacks/Hackers, I was initially skeptical. Frankly, both of us have an unhealthy tendency to jump into the latest cool tool or group, and we’d just had a Sunlight Foundation meetup. But when I finally looked...
When I first signed up for Twitter in November 2006, it was even harder to explain than it is today. Twitter was born as a group SMS messaging service (a side project of a now defunct podcasting company), evolved into a “microblogging” platform, and eventually grew into a social network...
Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle has directed all city department and agency heads to support its open data initatives. And now, Honolulu’s engagement with the national “Code For America” program has now brought three new web apps for citizens.
The Sea-Based X-Band radar ship, the SBX-1, dominates the horizon when it’s in port in Pearl Harbor, making headlines just by showing up. Part of the U.S. Department of Defense Ballistic Missile Defense System, it’s 280 feet tall, 380 feet long, with a displacement of 50,000 tons. Two out of...
Google today added over 200 popular Hawaii visitor attractions, historical sites, resorts, parks, schools, and golf courses to its Google Street View collection. And the expansion takes Google’s 360-degree imagery of the Aloha State beyond the open road. The announcement was made at a special media event at Hanauma Bay...
Declaring daily deal discounts an ‘old school’ fad, a local firm is betting that free stuff is the best way to connect businesses to new customers.
On Friday, State CIO Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia and the Office of the Governor called together several community stakeholders to update them on their ongoing initiative to transform government. The presentation came just as the state selected Socrata for its open data platform. Contrasted against the passage of SB2858, it made...
“Explore” is the theme of this year’s Springfest event, one of two signature annual gatherings of the Hawaii Macintosh & Apple User Society (HMAUS). Taking place on the campus of Kapiolani Community College, Springfest is a free, casual conference that offers presentations and workshops inspired by Apple technology. Topics include...
Startup Weekend Honolulu went down over a 54-hour jam session in Kakaako, in conjunction with other Startup Weekend events happening around the world. The goal? To pitch, design, code and launch a startup in less than three days. The event was hosted at The Greenhouse Innovation Hub on Auahi Street. On...
I love Twitter. It’s a fast and efficient social network and status stream based on short messages. And today, the Hawaii-based team at Shacked Software released an app that pairs Twitter’s modern, real-time stream of news with some vintage, old-school technology. TeleTweet [iTunes link] is a Twitter client that unearths...
Yesterday brought the fifth-annual Unconferenz, held at Kapiolani Community College. The event is a great grass-roots geek gathering, and one that has developed a reputation over the years of fostering connections and sparking ideas that have gone on to create real change in the local tech community. This year’s Unconferenz...
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...
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...
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,...
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.
What I’m Reading
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