Open Data Study Substantial social and economic gains can be made from opening government data to the public. The combination of geographic, budget, demographic, services, education, and other data, publicly available in an open format on the web, promises to improve services as well as create future economic growth. This approach has been recently pioneered by governments in the United States and the United Kingdom (with the launch of two web portals, www.data.gov and www.data.gov.uk respectively) inspired in part by applications developed by grassroots civil society organizations ranging from bicycle accidents maps to sites breaking down how and where tax money is spent. In the UK, the data.gov.uk initiative was spearheaded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. The report finds that in both the U.S. and U.K., a three-tiered drive was at play. As Tim Berners-Lee observed in an interview, "It has to start at the top, it has to start in the middle, and it has to start at the bottom."
Open battle: Nintendo, MS and Sony face new players in the console wars | Technology This is how console development usually works: a major consumer technology corporation spends several years and millions of dollars in R&D, putting together a piece of hardware that's jammed with high-end proprietary components. The tech is launched region by region over a period of months, and it is then left unmodified until a smaller, cheaper-to-produce model is rolled out some years later. This happens every five years until the company runs out of money. That is the past. This is the future. And now there's this thing called Kickstarter where offbeat tech projects can be funded by enthusiasts. 12 months later, Playjam Announces the GameStick, it hits Kickstarter and with 18 days to go has already made four times its initial $100,000 target. GameStick, of course, is not alone. "There's a multitude of reasons for Ouya and GameStick's success on KickStarter," says Patrick Goss, editor-in-chief at news site, TechRadar. Certainly, two important factors have co-aligned here.
Open Definition society & values Gamers OUYA OUYA is a powerful, beautifully-designed game console for the TV. It’s priced at $99, and all the games are free-to-try. Shooters, platformers, sports games, arcade classics and indie games just feel bigger and better on a TV screen. OUYA will offer a broad range of games from all the genres you love. Plus, every game is free — well, free-to-try. OUYA has great games and great apps. Lastly, OUYA is powerful. “The prospect of an affordable, open console — that’s an idea I find really exciting.” — Adam Saltsman (Semi Secret, creator of Canabalt)
Data mining Process of extracting and discovering patterns in large data sets Data mining is the process of extracting and discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems.[1] Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and statistics with an overall goal of extracting information (with intelligent methods) from a data set and transforming the information into a comprehensible structure for further use.[1][2][3][4] Data mining is the analysis step of the "knowledge discovery in databases" process, or KDD.[5] Aside from the raw analysis step, it also involves database and data management aspects, data pre-processing, model and inference considerations, interestingness metrics, complexity considerations, post-processing of discovered structures, visualization, and online updating.[1] Etymology[edit] Background[edit] The manual extraction of patterns from data has occurred for centuries. Process[edit]
Legal The west's crisis is one of democracy as much as finance | Slavoj Žižek In one of the last interviews before his fall, Nicolae Ceausescu was asked by a western journalist how he justified the fact that Romanian citizens could not travel freely abroad although freedom of movement was guaranteed by the constitution. His answer was in the best tradition of Stalinist sophistry: true, the constitution guarantees freedom of movement, but it also guarantees the right to a safe, prosperous home. So we have here a potential conflict of rights: if Romanian citizens were to be allowed to leave the country, the prosperity of their homeland would be threatened. In this conflict, one has to make a choice, and the right to a prosperous, safe homeland enjoys clear priority … It seems that this same spirit is alive and well in Slovenia today. Last month the constitutional court found that a referendum on legislation to set up a "bad bank" and a sovereign holding would be unconstitutional – in effect banning a popular vote on the matter.
Open data strategy - Publications We have changed our Open Data Strategy. It incorporates new cross-government measures from the Cabinet Office publication of the National Information Infrastructure and related Dataset Inventories. The Strategy builds on the commitments outlined in the department’s original strategy published in June 2012 and summarises our important activities and data releases planned over the next 2 years. The strategy is split into the following important sections: We publish updates every 6 months on how we are meeting our commitments in the open data strategy. Our information strategy draws on a common set of information principles designed to help the public sector become increasingly aligned in using and managing information.
Science and technology policy OECD Home › Science and technology › Science and technology policy › Science, Technology and Innovation for the 21st Century. Meeting of the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy at Ministerial Level, 29-30 January 2004 - Final Communique 1. The OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy met at Ministerial level on 29 30 January 2004. 2. 3. 4. 5. Connecting science to innovation 6. 7. 8. 9. Adapting IPR regimes 10. 11. 12. Building a highly skilled and mobile scientific workforce for the future 13. 14. 15. International co-operation in science and technology 16. Access to research data 17. Sustainable development 18. Biotechnology 19. Global Science Forum 20. High-energy physics 21. Neuroinformatics 22. Enhanced safety and security 23. Areas for further OECD work 25. adopted on 30 January 2004 in Paris Recognising that open access to, and unrestricted use of, data promotes scientific progress and facilitates the training of researchers;
Brutus Trimfit - Home page Open Data in the United Kingdom There have been campaigns in the UK for its government to open up the large amounts of data it has for greater public usage without prohibitively large fees. Currently some UK public sector data are released under a Creative Commons compatible license. Overview[edit] Crown Copyright has been a long standing copyright protection applied to official works, and at times artistic works, produced under royal or official supervision. The Guardian newspaper's Technology section began a "Free Our Data" campaign, calling for data gathered by authorities at public expense to be made freely available for reuse by individuals. Open Government Licence[edit] The OGL symbol introduced with version 2.0 of the licence to indicate content covered by the licence Data holders[edit] Crown Copyright is the default copyright applied to all government department published documents.[6] Met Office[edit] Ordnance Survey[edit] Ordnance Survey has been subject to criticisms. Transport Direct[edit] History[edit]
economic and political Blue Monday: a depressing day of nonsense science (again) | Dean Burnett | Science Today is Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. Except for the fact that is definitely isn't. It is if you go by what the media and the concept's originator says. It isn't if you go by what science, psychology, evidence and sanity in general say. I have a long history with this "Blue Monday" non-phenomenon. Exactly a year ago, I wrote a piece for the Guardian about my humiliating experiences with the persistent myth of "Blue Monday", and why it's all complete corporate-sponsored gibberish. It went better than was anticipated, as evidenced by the fact that you're reading this on my dedicated Guardian blog. Given that I'm still approached to discuss it as if I take it seriously, it suggests I've been too subtle in the past. This claim is incorrect. The equation itself is farcical. Even if you could combine these things, you'd get nothing useful. I'm not saying there isn't a most depressing day of the year, I'm sure there is one. It would require a fairly big study.