once bitten

Where the ladies at?

Now you know. This app pulls data from the Foursquare API and calculates which places have a high female-to-male ratio. credit for inspiration goes to the original "where the ladies at" apps

The NOLA Ladies site illustrates perfectly why framing the online data debate as just about privacy is too blunt an approach.

This site shows you where the venues with more women than men are, based on Foursquare checkins. All this data was given up willingly by the participants, but for me it doesn't pass what John Fritz calls the "squirm factor".

This usage of information, though from consenting participants, leaves me very uncomfortable indeed. The question is if the squirm factor can be codified (if it should), and how to deal with the notion that squirminess is a very personal thing.

Data Pointed is the home of artist and scientist Stephen Von Worley's data visualization research; a journal of interesting information imagery and news from around the world; and a place where you can spend a few minutes, have a laugh or two, and discover something new. Learn more!

The Bluetooth 4.0 standard is an update to the previous Bluetooth 3.0 wireless technology, which was announced in 2009. The new standard adds a low-power specification for transmitting small bursts of data over short ranges. The standard will also include the high-speed data transfer capabilities introduced with Bluetooth 3.0, which allows devices to jump on Wi-Fi 802.11 networks to transfer data at up to 25M bps (bits per second).

The technology could first make its way to watches, smart meters, pedometers and other gadgets that run on coin-cell batteries, Foley said. Laptops and smartphones could ultimately include Bluetooth 4.0 and be able to collect data from gadgets. That should help in activities such as monitoring health and energy usage, Foley said.

I started working with Bluetooth in the 1.0 days, when it was really more of a revision of the old infra-red communication standards. I'm excited by the possibilities of low-power high-bandwidth connectivity to small sensors.

Research-Driven Startups

The web boom has taken the valley from its roots as a research haven to a consumer media app haven.

Companies like Facebook and Twitter build simple apps, get traction, and then bring in the researchers.

Nevertheless, I think we may be at the dawn of a data and research renaissance.

We are starting to see more research-driven data startups.

I was talking with Bradford about this subject over the weekend, and it's great to see his thoughts here in long-form. He talks about needing to compile the skills of researchers (data scientists), hackers and frontend builders, and to productize the results. I love the mantra "Solving problems with products, built on research, driven by processing data".

To put it another way, big data wants to be deployed. It's not just research, it's data manipulation headed for production. That reaches into everywhere: the tool-set, the personnel, and the mindset of data research.

Google has acquired ITA, developer of the airfare search and pricing system QPX that is used by major airlines. The deal is for $700 million in cash and comes after months of rumors about Google buying ITA.

I can't wait to see what Google is going to do with this data set. Searching for flights is such a painful experience. It's also a fun thought experiment to consider what other data they could join this up with.

I'm a big fan of Omni Group's OmniFocus productivity software. It caught my eye that they are creating a sync server for it. Right now, I sync my OmniFocus against Mobile Me, so what's the value of a separate sync server?

Put simply, API. The frustration of OmniFocus is that in an age where I can get most of my personal data anywhere on any device, OmniFocus is tethered just to my Mac and iPhone. And in particular, the big missed opportunity is that, although OmniFocus offers an API, it's an AppleScript one that runs only on my laptop.

I wrote to Omni to suggest that, seeing as they're hosting OmniFocus data on their cloud, they could open up a web services API to the data. That way, people wanting to write an Android app, or other clever scripts to manipulate OmniFocus data, could program against that.

There's a large ecosystem out there waiting to blossom around OmniFocus. A web services API would light the touchpaper!