Last Friday, the NY Senate CIO hosted the first ever Capitol Camp in Albany.
Along with Remy DeCausemaker, I led a session on “Open Data for Developers”, discussing the Why?/What?/How?’s of releasing government data in open formats with open tools. Remy demonstrated the scrubbers and scrapers that his organization Civx.us has developed.
I wrote these up quickly for a friend who needed some bullet points for a proposal, and so I thought I’d just share them here, as well. Please comment with your own experiences with Android #WINs and #FAILs.
Development SDK is free, open-source and officially supported for Windows, Linux and Mac OS (iPhone is Mac OS only basically)
Java is the foundation for Android development vs. Objective-C on iPhone: many more Java developers and more affordable; ALSO a number of existing open-source Java libraries can run on Android, specifically Apache Commons client library code
Android devices have removable batteries and SIM cards and can be unlocked for use on other networks w/o breaking the law
Android devices have Micro SD based storage that can be easily removed; good for both application data distribution and security reasons
Android hardware supports a true digital compass (your software knows which direction your user is facing, not just GPS lat/lon), as well as (at least with G1 device) auto-focus 3 megapixel camera capable of barcode, fingerprint and human iris scanning
Finally, custom version of the Android OS can be built that are purpose-built, stripped down and customized for certain applications
Social Activism Using Mobile Technology
H79.2800.1 Call#76846 Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm Staff ITP Course Listing
We all know how mobile phones and ubiquitous computing have changed communication and networking in our personal lives, but do you understand the affect they have had on political and social justice movements around the world? More importantly, do you know how this has been done, so that you can apply these techniques when your own moment to raise your voice comes? While Obama Vice-Presidential SMS announcement was a milestone for politics in the U.S., activists and organizations around the world have been using mobile phones for years to get their message out, organize their communities, safely communicate under authoritarian eyes and save lives in times of crisis.
Through studying historic, global uses of mobile technology and then teaching you how to use and apply these techniques, this course will give you the power 2B THE CHNG U WNT 2 C. The source will study and apply the use of SMS capture and broadcast systems (FrontlineSMS/RapidSMS), mobile crisis & event reporting tools (Ushahidi, VoteReport), Bluetooth broadcast systems, pirate Wifi mesh nodes, helmet-cam mobile phones and wearable UMPC/NetBook video broadcast systems. The course will also study about security and privacy of mobile phones and the possibility for open-source telephony. While the focus will be on the cutting edge, we’ll also review the historic importance of police scanners, HAM radio, walkie talkie radios and other “old school” tools that have played important roles in the civil rights movement, the environmental movement and more. Actual organizations, causes and activists will be invited to speak to the class (both in-person and via Skype from around the world) to offer their stories and observations. Opportunities to work on projects with these movements will be presented to students.
Some experience programming mobile devices (J2ME, iPhone, Android) will be useful, but not necessary. Experience in setting up at least one web server/application or blog system preferred. Having a cause you work or identify with or at least something you care about will be very important. Case studies to include:
The use of SMS message forwarding and multimedia attachments to share the Philippines version of the Nixon tapes
Streaming live video from Mt. Everest and the Great Wall of China (while hiding from the police)
Secure, Anonymous, Private Mobile Phones via open-source Cryptophone software and Google Android
Reporting in Crisis: Kenya, Congo and Gaza eyewitness acount tracking via SMS and Smartphones
Election Protection: making sure your vote counts – activism for the common citizen
Crowd Control: Organizing and directing mass mobilizations through Twitter and SMS
Virtual Telephony: Asterisk, Google Voice, Skype and more, and why making phone numbers virtual and disposalable matters
From Tsunami’s to Twitter: did you know the first micro-blogging via SMS that mattered happened in the aftermath of the 2005 tsunami?
Cruxy was first envisioned back 2004 as something called “DigiPay” and then “OpenVision”, and then ultimately Cruxy, a crossroads of creativity and commerce. Cruxy is also a rock climbing term for a very difficult climbing problem to solve, like perhaps when you have to cling from your fingertips to a horizontal rock shelf and pull yourself up, sweating, planning and thinking the entire way. That’s a bit how the last four+ years have felt… and we are exhausted.
Jon and Nate in Brooklyn, 2006
Jon and I set out to bring creative people making digital works closer to their audiences, and give them powerful tools to distribute and monetize their content online in any format, price or online venue (blog, virtual world, website, mobile phone) they thought was best for their product. It was a distributed market, meant to empower thousands of other sites, as opposed to trying to own a single audience.
The good news is that while Cruxy never really broke through in the way we hoped, the world, including Apple & iTunes, has shifted to embrace some of the ideals we have always had – open formats, more ways to distribute and promote online, more avenues for niche content to be discovered and heard. People today are watching long-form HD video online (though still much of it is content repurposed from mainstream networks for sites like Hulu.com), downloading podcasts and mashing up and sharing their own original creativity like never before. Rock stars like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are completely destroying myths about how the “music industry” should work, while independent musicians like Jonathan Coulton, are proving that through hard work, creativity and ingenuity, that you can quit your day job.
Jon, Nate and Will at the Cruxy Cantina event in 2007
The world has changed for the better, and we are glad for that, but at some point we have to admit, Cruxy is not needed or used by enough people for us to keep going. While we have had an amazing cloud-based business model since day #1 that actual made sense and worked, thanks to my brilliant, co-founder Jon Oakes, we were never able to scale our business up with enough volume to allow us to make an actual living. Our technology platform, built by the incomparable Will Meyer, was a great success in my mind, being one of the first to fully embrace Amazon’s cloud and provide a widget-based commerce system that actually worked!
With all that said, I (Nathan) sent out the letter below, on behalf of the Cruxy team, to our top artists and sellers…
I am writing to let you know that we are going to stop purchases on Cruxy in one week (March 18th), and then ultimately shutdown the service on April 1. All final payouts to you will be made then.
It has been pretty obvious that we haven’t been able to maintain the high level of service we’d like, and to be honest, it is because none of us can commit the time necessary to making the site work as it should anymore. It just isn’t fair to you or the customers to represent our site as being “open for business” when it barely is. This was a very difficult decision as Cruxy has been 100% built and funded by a very small, passionate team. However, times are tough everywhere, whether online or offline, and we need to come to terms with that.
We really appreciate all of the traffic and business you’ve brought to Cruxy, and are writing you directly because we recognize that, and want to make the transition as smooth as possible. We can keep your pages and links up through March, but we will just be turning off the “BUY” option. This way you can provide an alternate link to direct customers to your download destination.
Drop.io, another Brooklyn-based service, also has an interesting service for paid downloads called PayWall: http://drop.io/paywall
If you have any other ideas or questions about how we can make this process work, let me know. Again, you have been an amazing community of creative artists and digital makers, and we wish you the best in your artistic and business efforts moving forward.
Thanks, everybody, for all of your support. Whatever you do, please keep creating, making, sharing, mashing and living. We need art and inspiration in these times, like never before.
Here’s an early “Best of Cruxy” montage… special thanks to all of you who have been with us since the very early days.
and course, the incomparable HowToDoTheRobot.com crew….
Darryl K. Taft, a reporter from eWeek magazine, was in the room at the NYLUG event last week, and I didn’t even know it! I am still working on getting some audio, video and slides up from that talk, but in the meantime, some good quotes from the evening below, and after the link…
Freitas, who has worked at Palm as a program manager building Java code, said he appreciates Android as “the first open mobile platform. There’s really a lot to hack on. It’s really the first open platform developer-tools-wise. No one’s ever put the effort into delivering a fully cross-platform development environment.”
and this….
Making a comparison to the iPhone development environment, Freitas said, “There’s a big difference between APIs and a thoughtful platform…The iPhone is a beautiful device and a great user experience.”
However, the iPhone world does not focus as much on providing an ecosystem of services for developers like Android does, Freitas said, noting the OpenIntents.org site, which is a place to collect, design and implement open intents and interfaces to make Android mobile applications work more closely together. In addition, Freitas mentioned the PhoneGap project, which is a development tool that allows Web developers to take advantage of the core features in the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry SDK using JavaScript.
