The Evolving Face of the Hackathon

Kin Lane, August 8th, 2011

Hackathons have been a staple in Silicon Valley tech culture for quite some time, but recently we have seen seeing hackathons evolve outside of the valley — from Los Angeles to Prague.

The format of the Hackathon is pretty straightforward: You bring together a group of developers in a room, give them a topic to code around, then they break into teams and begin hacking for usually from 24-72 hours. On the final day, theypresent what they’ve built. Winners usually go home with cash, prizes, and of course notoriety.


Find Places To Charge Up Your Electric Car With Open Charge Map

Allen Tipper, July 26th, 2011

Open Charge MapOpenChargeMap is a neat little service designed to help those with electric cars find places to charge up. With gas prices going the way they are, electrics are becoming a trendy alternative, and with the new Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf offering good choices for the average consumer, more and more people are going electric. If you’re one of those, however, there’s always a hitch: finding a place to “fill up”. Now you’re covered and with the OpenChargeMap API you can integrate the service into other things.


Plug to be Pulled on Google Health and PowerMeter

Romin Irani, July 6th, 2011

Google HealthIt seems that the API cleaning has not yet ended at Google. Awhile back, Google announced its decision to shut down its popular translation API, a decision that did not go down favourably with the users. Now Google Health API has been given a negative prognosis and Google PowerMeter API will soon run out of juice.


Onset Launches Environmental Data API for Devices

Kin Lane, July 1st, 2011

Onset HOBOlinkOnset, a supplier of data logging devices, just launched the HOBOlink® Web Services API, that enables anyone to easily build applications around weather, energy and environmental data gathered from the Onset HOBO® U30 monitoring systems, hardware you install in your environment which can share its status up to Onset’s system.


Nike Seeks Fellow to Start an Open Data Revolution

Justin Houk, April 14th, 2011

NikeAthletic shoe and apparel giant Nike recently announced that it is looking for a fellow to help ignite an open data revolution within the company. Nike’s vice President of Sustainability, Hannah Jones, announced the fellowship and a partnership with Code for America during a session at SXSW 2011. Nike has exposed internal data in the past and hopes to create a situation where other companies might follow suite for a greener future.


Calculate Energy Consumption With the WattzOn API

Garrett Wilkin, April 6th, 2011

WattzOnThe biggest value that WattzOn is offering through its WattzOn API is access to its “Embodied Energy Database” (EED). This database seeks to detail the amount of energy required to manufacture, transport, use, and dispose of all our stuff. The idea is that if we knew the embodied energy in all the items we use, we could make better consumption choices, avoiding those items with unexpectedly high embodied energy.


How Green is Your Supply Chain? Sourcemap has an Answer

Matthew Casperson, December 29th, 2009

sourcemap1In today’s globalised world most products you see on the store shelf were probably made from parts sourced from all over the world. As we become more aware of the environmental impact of transporting these parts, it is important to have easily accessible information on how a final product comes together. Sourcemap is a project of the Media Lab at MIT, and it allows users to easily visualise what components go into a product, how they are shipped, and what the environmental impacts are.


Developers Go for Green ($ and Earth) with Gnomedex and Live Search

Tina Gasperson, April 24th, 2009

Windows Live SearchGnomedex, the annual tech conference in Seattle hosted by Chris Pirillo, and Microsoft Live Search, are teaming up to sponsor a developer’s contest dubbed “Will Code for Green” where judges will accept mashup entries in two categories: Economy and Ecology.


Green Thing Labs: An API to Do the Green Thing

Andres Ferrate, February 27th, 2009

Green ThingYou may not be familiar with Green Thing, a web based service that inspires people to lead a greener life, but you should be. With the help of brilliant videos and inspiring stories etc. from creative people and community members around the world, Green Thing focuses on seven things you can do – and enjoy doing.


Environmental Activists Discover Mashups

Kevin Farnham, February 26th, 2008

In her recent article “Using Web2.0 tools for Environmental Activism”, Global Voices Online writer Juliana Rotich looks at how environmental activists are taking advantage of modern Web tools to share information and raise funds.


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