Anything Goes Mashup
-
"100 Companies", by Alex Gibson & Graham Jenson
100 Companies won the $10,000 Supreme Data Mashup Award sponsored by Ministry of Science and Innovation
100 Companies is a fresh perspective of New Zealand's current economic situation, it allows users to view New Zealand's economy and adjust determining factors that affect our prosperity. Our overall goal is to dispel some of the myths used to justify some current policies, and inform the public to consequences of governmental decisions. We dispel myths surrounding the key questions “what happens if we increase tourism?”, “What happens if we increase dairy?”, “how long will our resources last?”, “what does New Zealand actually make”, and most importantly "What do we need to invest in to make New Zealand Prosperous?". To answer these questions we have collected data from numerous sources (including government, industry and academia), aggregated the knowledge into New Zealand specific standards (NZSIC, NZHIC), and modelled our projections using reasonable assumptions. To present this information we use intuitive, interactive data visualisation techniques, and the latest web standards available. We aimed to portray the information and visualisation in an original, appealing manner for general consumption. We’ll have achieved what we set out to do if this visualisation informs people’s decisions about tourism, dairy, mining, manufacturing and New Zealand’s way forward. -
"Augmented reality layer of NZ public toilets.", by Daniil Ivshin
This is a data layer prepared for the Layar augmented reality browser. It was inspired by a friend who has certain gastrointestinal issues. I wanted to make sure they were always able to find a toilet if they needed one. The layer seeks to map out the locations of all the public toilets in NZ. Unfortunately only Wellington data is publicly available at the moment. It combines geo-location data with descriptions, opening times, and accessibility info. Not only will this help people find relief when they need it, it should prevent frustration with finding a closed door at time of greatest need. The Layer browser is supported by Andorid and iOS so it would have a fairly large potential userbase. The Flickr gallery does a walk through of the layer and interface. The application is available in Layar under NZ Public Toilets. If you would like me to set an email addresses as a tester, please let me know at daniil.ivshin@gmail.com
-
"Augmented reality map of NZ public sculpture.", by Daniil Ivshin
This is a data layer prepared for the Layar augmented reality browser. It was inspired by a suggestion from Matt Lane and seeks to map out the locations of all the public sculpture in NZ. Unfortunately only Wellington data is publicly available at the moment. It combines geo-location data with descriptions, photos of the artwork, and links to external websites. The Layer browser is supported by Andorid and iOS so it would have a fairly large potential userbase. The idea is for a person to open up the application and be able to locate all the public sculptures around their present location. The info is able to be displayed as a map, a list, or in a camera view which overlays information about the art over a live image from the smartphone camera. The interface also allows for the user to go to related websites. They are also able to get directions to the sculpture. Potential users could be tourists or locals interested in the art they see around the city. The Layer is now available as NZ Public Sculpture. The Flickr gallery does a walk through of the layer and interface.
-
"Crappr", by Michael Parreno-Villa
Crappr basically a tool that helps you find public toilets. It currently consists of: a web app, a mobile web app and an open API. With Crappr you can browse public toilets on a map and can get information on it’s opening hours, whether its got a changing room or disabled facilities, what genders it caters for, any other nearby toilets and how other users have rated it. - To make life easier when locating toilets, Crappr provides you with a satellite view and, if available, a street view of the selected toilet. - Crapprs also allows users to rate and review public toilets. So future crappr goers may be warned that: the left cubicle doesn’t flush correctly, or the soap dispenser is broken or even that the toilet is filthy and should be avoided. - When nature calls, mobile site users can use the location services built into their Smartphone to find the nearest toilet and all its information. The availability of toilet information on the go allows Crappr goers to make more informed choices. For example: the nearest toilet may be ill-maintained and rated 1 star, but Crappr lets the user know that 50m away there is 5 star – the Crappr user is thus saved from an unpleasant experience! - Through the API developers can easily integrate Crappr information into their own applications and even develop native versions of Crappr if they wish! Crappr details: - Web app: crappr.heroku.com, - Mobile web app: crappr.heroku.com from a mobile, - API Documentation: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1q6tU_7SdMQ-nMHj68-jaAwBikLXWBLSmYKFfQeHo8Ek
-
"Geonear", by Ben Nolan
My site uses the wellington city council suburb boundaries, the zenbu creative commons places data, and the freely licensed OpenStreetMap data to create a shared space where people in Wellington can talk about issues that are important to them. The goal is to create a site that is more than just a 'rate and review restaurants' site, but encourages users to talk and share information about public spaces, for example to allow discussion around ideas like "The busses on manners mall are going too fast". To that end, we create seperate pages for parks, like Glover park and Waitangi park, and page for people to talk about streets and buildings. I've done this because I think the public spaces in cities are often under-represented in the online representation of that city. The parks are just as important as the bars. Some of the original things I've done are creating a 'google street view navigator', so you can click your way down cuba street by navigating from one place to the next visually. I've used the Wellington City Council suburb data so that I can create a hierachy of places, starting at Wellington, then suburb, then street, then place. I also allow users to create places inside places, so for example you might have 'Level 3' at the 'Wellington Library', or 'Corner table' at 'Hashigo Zake'. I've also adapted ideas from popular forum software and the trademe search filters so that users can pick up and start to use Geonear without learning a new set of paradigms.
-
"Hot Mash", by Bernard O'Leary
Hot Mash is a dynamic heatmap tool that allows the user to view changes in the Stats NZ census data geographically over time. I have selected five questions that seem interesting to me, from the fifty-odd available in the Stats NZ census dataset. So, the user can also potentially make a geographic comparison between questions - for example level of education attained vs. level of household income. I have searched far-and-wide for another heatmap tool that focuses on New Zealand census data. To my way of thinking, the census dataset is crying out to be heatmapped, so I took the opportunity to do it! To be fair, the Hot Mash tool is rough around the edges; the UI code could use a once-over and the database could use a performance boost. I'm thinking about taking a question or two out of the back-end database before 9pm today to see if I can speed her up a bit. I am pleased with the overall result however, there are no glaring bugs and the tool holds together under fairly rigorous testing.
-
"Kiwi Baby Birthz ", by Richard Foster
Being Rugby World Cup year with a focus on rugby I was wondering if there is a relationship between the performances of the All Blacks and the birth rates in the following 38-42 weeks of an All Blacks match. So, if the All Blacks lose are more or less babies born. If the All Blacks win, what effect does that have upon the reproduction statistics of our Nation. Of course any number of event could be calibrated against our birthing rates but since its RWC2011 its got to be rugby to begin with. Other data sets that I have in mind are Cricketing results along with the weather. For example, daily temperatures, amount of rain fall and sunshine hours. If correlations can be found it could become a use tool in helping the health service around the planning of maturity services.
-
"Maori Dictionary for Android", by Marielle Lange
Maori Dictionary for Android won the Newbie Mashup Award sponsored by Orcon
Port of Williams Maori Dictionary for Mobile devices. The dictionary, published in 1957 is still seen as one of the best and most complete reference. The mobile version was made possible by a scanned version released of William's dictionary under a CC-BY-SA license thanks to NZETC. The motivation for this is simply that I wanted an excuse to publish an android application. As migrant, my exposure to Maori has been minimal and I found disappointing that no free resources existed on the Android store. That seemed like a project small enough to be done in a maximum of two weeks (what I had available). It also presented a rare opportunity to refresh some old skills in linguistic text analysis. The work includes tools for parsing the xml generated by the OCR tools containing not always reliable information. I used a mixture of regular expressions and manual updates (made quicker by the set up of a custom textmate bundler) to come up with xml tags that better capture linguistic information. I used the experience I had as a psycholinguistic, in a past career. A flexible parsing tool turns the xml into a sqlite database. The database serves as datastore for mobile applications. The largely reworked version of the dictionary is made available as a mobile application, targeting Android devices for now. The application is written in Flex. In theory, in the future, I should be able to target other devices (iPhone) with the same codebase. -
"Next Bus", by Simon Coggins
Next Bus is a simple mobile public transport app that answers the most common question a traveller has – when is the next bus/train/ferry? Right now to find that out you need to find a timetable, look at a dense table of departures, check your watch, figure out the next departure, and then determine how long the wait will be. It shouldn’t have to be so hard! And now it isn’t. With just a couple of clicks, Next Bus will tell you how long you’ll be waiting, and once you’ve saved a trip it’s remembered for next time. All the departure times are updated automatically, so a glance at the screen will tell you what you need. If you’re not ready to leave yet you can click the trip name to get the next 10 departures, plus a link to the relevant section of the full timetable on the Metlink mobile site. Next Bus uses the Wellington Metlink Google Transit Feed, which contains schedule information for all of Wellington region’s buses, trains, ferries and even the cable car. I’ve used the JQuery mobile framework to provide maximum compatibility, meaning the same site works on all modern smartphones, plus a wide range of standard compliant web browsers, and degrades gracefully on older devices. Simplicity and speed were key aims, so there’s not much more to it than that. In the future I’d like to extend the timetables to cover other parts of New Zealand. I’m also really looking forward to Metlink releasing their real-time data API, so I can display actual arrival times rather than relying on the schedules. Who knows, one day waiting at a bus stop could be a thing of the past!
-
"NZ People on Maps", by Nora Wang
NZ People on Maps won the Anything Goes Mashup category sponsored by Stuff
This entry takes data from the NZ 2006 Census and presents it as a series of maps to help us understand the people of NZ a little better. While the census data is very useful for producing statistics and summaries, it can be hard to understand the patterns across the country until you see it on a map. This data mashup uses Google Fusion tables to hold the census data, and presents various columns of it in a Google map with an overlaid NZ Census Area Unit (CAU) layer accessed as a KML file. Pie charts or swing-o-meters are also available by clicking on a census area unit on the map, for categories where there are many variables available (eg ethnicity). Linking charts to maps like this is a useful way to allow the user to examine the data in greater detail, and in different ways yet keep the interface simple. The website is designed to be very easy to use, and hopefully to ignite some enthusiasm in the user to zoom in and pan around the map looking for interesting spatial patterns and trends... and learn a bit more about NZ and the distribution of its inhabitants. -
"NZTraffic", by Josh Burton
NZTraffic is an android application for accessing the traffic webcams and congestion information from around New Zealand. Its formatted to be ideal for when you are driving, with 4 easy to access "favourites" that you can set as your most used cameras. Along with the webcam image, the app displays current congestion information for the road, such as heavy or congested traffic, or free flow. The app is also optimised for android tablets, which is fast growing market in New Zealand. The app is designed to work on android devices version 2.2 and up.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.joshburton.nztraffic
-
"Our Highways", by James hancock
New Zealand state highways are terrible places, on the visualisation website you will see what initially appears to be a road map, nearly 100,000 accidents can be investigated by day of week, month, year, crash severity, injury , death count and the side of the road the impact occurred on. These are merged with the state highway centre-lines and google maps street view.
-
"Traffic Time - real time visualisation of Auckland Motorway traffic congestion", by Mike Hadrup
Traffic Time provides a real time visualisation of road sensor data from the NZTA InfoConnect SSDF feed covering the Auckland motorways. The feed data is updated every 2 minutes by NZTA. The visualisation combines location, average speed, volume and occupancy from 169 road sensors to create heat spots of traffic flow and congestion. Colour blends show the average speed of traffic and the width of each site indicates traffic volumes. eg large black heat spots show larges volumes of slow moving traffic at the worst congestion times Hovering over any site provides detailed road sensor information. By entering I'm hoping to motivate NZTA to continue improving InfoConnect and to release more raw traffic data. The ultimate goal of providing real time traffic information is to allow drivers to make informed choices about when and when not to drive... even a delay of 15 minutes by enough people can make a huge difference to congestion. I've been collecting raw traffic samples since August 2010 (currently 1.4m samples) and was hoping to finish a mashup of historical traffic patterns by day of week, time of day, etc as the basis for a predictive traffic view.
-
"trafficalert.co.nz", by Dale Halliwell
Features: Email (and/or SMS messages - we're negotiating the details right now). Publishing alerts about highways congestion, incidents, road closures and details in real time. Data source: The data comes from https://infoconnect.highwayinfo.govt.nz. Users sign up, build up the route they take regularly. Monitored roads are shown to them (this highwayinfo data covers still only the motorway system at this point, and configure the times when they want to receive notifications (i.e. just before they are leaving). If we have an sms feature they could get more notifications while in their car driving as they start their commute. The alerts only get sent to them when one of the traffic factors on their route has a significant problem (in a later version we may give the option for different alert levels for manual adjustment), and only during the periods they select. This is the idea I was going to do for last year's mix and match, but I wasn't able to start it due to only finding out about after the entries had closed. The site is developed in ASP.NET MVC2. The emails are managed through GMail, and the site itself is hosted on Amazon AWS.
-
"Traveldash ", by Rob Coup
TravelDash won a Lead Judges' Special Award sponsored by Department of Conservation
Just want to know when your next bus or train home is? Me too! Your own dashboard shows just the stops and times that matter to you. Embed a dashboard in your team wiki, leave it open in a browser tab, or load it on your phone. Want different dashboards for getting to work, home, or school? No problems. Auckland only for now, but coming to a city near you soon (well, as long as they release a Transit feed!). Another take on the Google Transit Feed data released by many city authorities around the world. But rather than another viewer - this app lets people build dashboards just for them. Inspired by The Panic status board (http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/03/the-panic-status-board/), I want data just for me rather than another "search" or "routing" engine. This mashup is built on the Auckland Transport Google Transit data, updated monthly. Ideally it'd use the realtime data from the overhead signs but that's not open-licensed yet :) Other tech - GeoDjango, PostGIS, Google Fusion Tables, Compass, HTML5-boilerplate, and Django-SocialRegistration. -
"Vinyl Lionel", by Gareth Bradley
Vinyl Lionel won the $4000 Outstanding Data Mashup Award sponsored by New Zealand Post
NZ On Air has been funding NZ music for 20 years now – what good fellers. How is that investment faring in these digital days? On Youtube? On Facebook? Historically, funding was based on its radio play potential. More recently, the rules have been updated to factor in their online presence – their prowess at social media and pitching music videos online. This was also alongside a drive to foster talent that better fills global musical niches with unique artist, partly as a result of public backlash that the previous funding model only served a ‘middle of the road’ market. NZ On Air have had their funding decision results publicly available online for a few years now. Between 1991 and 2011, 881 artists have been given ~3,200 grants of $5k - $50k each. This entry provides a comprehensive and easy overview of that online footprint - Tracing how the world has taken to NZ’s music video legacy through Youtube, and who’s ‘engaging their audience’ on Facebook and racking up the big ‘like’ counts. It’s equally a tool to explore the landscape and history of music funded by NZ On Air, a measurement of return on investment of taxpayer money, and one hell of a case study into watching the world figure out how to build a fan base through these new digital mediums. Prior to this, all discussions on online success seemed anecdotal – people mentioning a few stats they were aware of, never having the full picture available. And that’s part of the fun – it’s such a new terrain artists and marketers to tread. Opinion on arts funding will always be present, and at times it’s difficult to show the success stories and find role models. Maybe this will change that. Hopefully this entry entertains, and starts a few conversations. Enjoy. -
"Whatever The Weather", by Dave Larsen
Whatever The Weather introduces the idea of "weather tagging", whereby photos and videos are tagged with weather data. Tagging photos and videos this way not only adds interesting context, but may also have a few practical applications such as tourism marketing, outdoor safety, weather verification and even checking what your favourite surf spot looks like under different wind conditions!
Selected judges' comments
"A very creative use of NIWA weather and smartphone photo data. It's a tool that would find uses well beyond nerding out on weather numbers."