So an AI walks into a Pub..

There is a joke/useful analogy that in very simple terms explains despite all the complexities and technicalities, how modern AI systems work at a fundamental level.. An AI walks into a pub and goes up to the bar, the bartender greets the newcomer and wants to know what they would like to drink.. “What’s everyone …

NRE App – just wrong !

Today National Rail Enquires have released a free iPhone app for real time train information. Hang-on you may say, I though that app already existed.. well it does ! For the last few years National Rail Enquires (NRE)  have been licensing at some considerable cost it’s information to independent software developers for them to develop their own …

EU Hackathon, Google can help you get there..

Google is supporting the EU Hackathon in November and is offering travel expenses to selected individuals ! The deadline to apply is October 17, and the Hackathon takes place November 8th and 9th, at the European Parliament in Brussels. Applicants must be citizens or residents of the EU. All expenses will be covered for selected …

Evening all, what going on with these crime maps then…

So initially the  moral of this story seems to be, if you are launching a Government website across the mass media, make sure you do the load testing with 100x what you expect. The real issue is that despite having best intentions and a commitment to transparency, it’s very easy to confuse, mislead and lose credibility with …

The Open Government Licence

Last week in addition to the new more open OS licesning, another in many ways more fundamental new license was introduced with little fanfare, but I would argue it’s impact if widely adopted could be far more important. The new UK Open Government licence (OGL) developed by the National Archives, is a robust licence developed using Creative Commons like …

So is the OS derived data issue now solved ?

Well from reading a couple of press releases the signs look hopeful… Both the OS and the Dept. of Communities and Local Government have announced the signing of the new Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA), a sole source long term contract for providing mapping data to all of the public sector. I’m sure this has not gone down …

Live Tube Map

A great early example of the value of the new TfL train prediction API, a map of the ‘Real time” locations of Tube Trains. Produced by MySociety ace Matthew Somerville a really neat demo and another example of the value of releasing government datasets, and in this case an example of an occasion where an API is …

Image of the day : Democracy at work ?

Courtesy of last weeks drop of Ordanace Survey Open Data, the Westminster electoral boundaries in Google Earth. It’s amazing to think that such a key dataset was not easily accessible until so recently. Without doubt this is just the type of data set that the “free our data” movement was calling to be made freely available. The type of innovation that comes from …