Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell‘s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

What I discovered was an entirely new class of vehicle: an electric bike that is just as easy to pedal as it is to ride motor-only. While the bike itself appeared to be a well-constructed, well-designed and well-thought-out piece of personal transportation, I wondered exactly who would be buying it, given its whopping $3,000 price tag. The answer may surprise you.Ultra Motor, a German-based company, manufactures the slick A2B Metro, the one I tried, and its cousin, the A2B Hybrid. The Metro is the more well-equipped of the two, boasting two battery packs, one built into the down tube, and one that slides onto the rear deck, and can be exchanged. The Hybrid model only includes one battery, the rear one. Both include an electric motor fully integrated into the rear hub, and disc brakes front and rear.

When I first looked at the A2B, I was struck and just how high the build quality appeared to be. The frame obviously sturdy, with thick welds, and all of the components seemed to be heavy-duty. (For some reason, the thick brake cables seemed very notable.)

One unique feature of these bikes is the ride position, which is much more upright than a mountain bike. According to the representative I spoke with, this was an intentional choice to make the vehicle more comfortable for bike commuters. This certainly appeared to be the case: when you mount the bike, with your butt on the seat, your feet are comfortably flat on the ground. When riding, with your feet on the pedals, it doesn’t feel awkward, and is very comfortable.

Unlike the mopeds that many of us may be familiar with, the A2B is designed as an “electric-assist” bike, where the
electric motor supplements a bike that can be pedaled on its own. WHen I was told that, I was expecting that the bike would feel heavy, until the electric motor was engaged, but this turned out not to be the case. The A2B seemed to be so well designed for the task, that pedaling it was just as easy as using the throttle.

One of the more interesting features is the way that you can use any combination of pedal or motor. While this sounds strange, at first, it works seamlessly, and took me only a few minutes to get used to.

I have to say that the overall experience was quite fun. It was just as much fun as any that I ever rode a motorbike of one sort or another, except that the electric motor makes everything so smooth, effortless and quiet (certainly something you would want if you were going to ride this through your neighborhood early in the morning, on your way to work).

It is very easy to see how the A2B would appeal to any urban dweller that is considering biking to work, especially one who has to contend with numerous hills, such as in San Francisco. While the hefty price tag may turn some off, it is certainly not out of line with the prices of some high-end racing bikes. The real market, however, is with fleet buyers, Police agencies, and retail rental outlets. As a matter of fact, one of the largest bike rental companies servicing San Francisco and New York owns several hundred A2B bikes, and they are constantly in use.

One of the things the rep said, which resonated with me, is that they wanted to build a high-quality vehicle that would last a very long time (thus justifying the price). While I am not sure that American consumers have adopted that mentality yet, it certainly seemed as if the quality justified that statement. He also said that there were no current plans to produce low-cost versions of the A2B. This is too bad, because I feel that a product, like this one, could really persuade people that commuting by bike might be a good idea after all.

However, at least one person vehemently disagrees with my take on the A2B. What do you think? Do $20K electric bikes make sense? Tell us you thoughts in the comments section.

Recorded at PariSoma in San Francisco, three companies with sustainable mobile applications speak about how to achieve social change with mobile apps. Moderated by former Mobile Greetings product manager and Dominican University Green MBA student Ryan Brown, and featuring Neighborfruit.com‘s Kaytea Petro (FindFruit), VolunteerMatch.com‘s Eric Dorf (VMConnect), and Kismet WorldWide Consulting‘s (WasteNot) Craig Michael Lie Njie.

Solar cells could make fossil fuels virtually redundant if they were cheaper, but their use of rare elements and complex manufacturing processes makes them expensive. – PhysOrg.com article “IBM develops promising contender for cheaper solar cells”

KurzwielAI.net is a very interesting blog maintained by Ray Kurzwiel, artificial intelligence expert and inventor of the electronic synthesizer. The blog highlights cutting-edge technologies that are information-based, such as medical and computing advances, and recently featured four neat scientific breakthroughs that could potentially change the face of cleantech.

Many people dispute the ability of high technology to provide substantive replacements for our oil-intensive lifestyles. Mr. Kurzweil has proposed a compelling reason why technology will, in fact, make a huge difference: the accelerating nature of information-based technologies. The logic goes something like this: any science or technology that is built upon information and information technologies will grow at an exponential pace (detailed analysis here). The following are a few examples of just how fast the pace of science and technology is currently advancing.

Two of the recent advances relate to increasing the efficiency of solar cells. KurzweilAI.net highlights a Technology Review article about a news coating for solar cells, “Stanford University spinoff Broadband Solar is developing coatings that increase the amount of light that inexpensive amorphous silicon solar cells absorb, making them competitive with the leading thin-film solar cells.” The company projects that their coating will provide a four-percent increase in the efficiency of amphorous silicon cells, with no increase in cost, and can do the same for traditional thin-film solar cells. The Technology Review article also states that, “Amorphous silicon has the advantage of being much more abundant than the materials used by [companies like] First Solar.”

The second solar advance is another type of solar cell which purportedly is cheaper than conventional cells. Summarizing a Physorg.com article, KurzweiAi.net states, “IBM Research has developed a prototype photovoltaic cell using common, cheap elements (tin, zinc, copper, selenium, and sulfur) to replace expensive rare elements indium and tellurium, and an inexpensive manufacturing process.” The process involves printing nanoparticles, called kesterites, onto a glass substrate. The Physorg.com article includes this, extremely tantalizing, quote: “Solar cells contribute under 0.1 per cent of the Earth’s electricity supply at the moment, largely due to their expense and the rarity of their key elements. The IBM solar cell could change all of that. IBM will patent and license the technology and says it is open to partnerships with existing photovoltaic cell manufacturers to bring it to the market.”

Another PhysOrg.com article (via Kurzweil as well) explains a team from the University of Michigan have discovered how to reduce power consumption in electronic devices by using “near-threshold computing (using lower voltages than normal to reduce energy consumption).” Although the article focuses mostly on how this process can be used to increase the performance of microprocessors (power consumption being a major barrier), the strategy could also be used to lower the power consumption of a device while maintaining its performance. According to the article, the potential reduction in energy consumption could be over 100%.

The last item could be a blessing for any clean technology that needs power storage, including wind, solar and electric vehicles. According to EE Times (via KurzweilAI.net), “Intel researchers are exploring nanoscale materials that could be used to create ultra-capacitors with a greater energy density than today’s lithium ion batteries. If successful, the new materials could be mass produced in volumes to power systems ranging from mobile devices to electric vehicles—even smart grid storage units.” Although this particular strain of research into ultracapacitors (a much more environmentally-friendly type of battery) in in an extremely early stage, it highlights a theme that runs through many of the breakthroughs: nanotechnology, which is manufacturing at a molecular scale. As in this case, many of the current efforts utilizing are in the form of liquids and coatings.

Reading about these types of scientific breakthroughs over the last couple of years has really made me a believer in the idea of accellerating change. The current pace of change is simply astounding. But, while I believe that new technologies will be a major factor in overcoming the huge challenges facing us, I also know that technology is not the only answer. Its still going to take a huge amount of cultural and social change, and human effort, if these challenges are going to be successfully surmounted.

What do you think? How will technology and science factor into our future?

Resources:

High-Efficiency Solar Cell with Earth-Abundant Liquid-Processed Absorber, Advanced Materials, IBM Research abstract (via Physorg.com)

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology: What is Nanotechnology?

Who Made America?: Ray Kurzweil (via PBS.org)

Ray Kurzweil and the Law of Accelerating Returns (shanemackey.com)

–

This article originally appeared on TriplePundit and is reprinted here thanks to 3P’s Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. You can find out more about Creative Commons licensing here.on twitter.

I just discovered this clean energy podcast by Tom Raftery of Spain. At about 11 minutes, in Tom makes some comments on my hydrogen article. He mostly supports my debunking of the hydrogen economy, although he does give a good example of how hydrogen creation can be useful in certain situations, such as storing excess power generation from wind production.

Thanks, Tom!

In the glorious Past Before Television, adventurous men and women gained fame and fortune by testing their skills in competitions designed to expand the limits of human knowledge and innovation. Several organizations are bringing back this kind of “innovation prize” in a big way, with competitions designed to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, and expand its horizons beyond terrestrial limits.

One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history was the result of a prize offered by the British government in the 18th century. At that time, many ships were being lost due to the inaccuracies involved in calculating their longitude at sea. The previous method, dead reckoning, introduced greater errors the farther the ship got from a known point, usually ending in loss of life and heated discussions about the velocity of various types of swallows. The British Parliament offered the modern equivalent of $4.56 million for a solution to the Longitude Problem.

One of the potential solutions to the problem required invention of a marine chronometer of such high accuracy that even Sir Issac Newton doubted that it could be created. But, in 1730, clockmaker John Harrison set himself to the task, and effectively solved the multiple problems of corrosion, temperature, humidity and durability within 5 years, (although it took him another thirty to collect his prize) a task which has been compared to the landing of men on the moon in the 1960s.

Other famous historical prize winners have included Nicolas Appert, who answered Napoleon’s challenge to invent a new food preservation method; Charles Lindbergh, who won $25,000 for flying solo across the Atlantic, Louis Pasteur, for his work in physiology; and a team from IBM, whose chess computer, Deep Blue, was the first to beat a human being, chess champion Gary Kasparov.

More recently, the X-Prize Foundation, the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, has been offerring prizes in the $10 million to $30 million range for solutions to big challenges in areas like space exploration, genomics and energy. Mr. Diamandis believe that by offerring huge prizes for people to take extraordinary risks, he can harness our competitive nature and drive major breakthroughs just where we need them most. His most famous venture to date, the Ansari X-Prize, awarded $10 million to aviator Burt Rutan’s team for being the first to achieve a private suborbital space flight, and then repeating the task two weeks later. The success of the Ansari prize rekindled public interest in space flight, and has lead to the numerous successors.

Mr. Diamandis envisions a new model for philanthropy, with a return on investment of 10x to 40x the amount invested (the prize money). Unlike traditional philanthropy or venture capital, the x-prize model doesn’t require the investor to bet his entire investment on the winner to get a return on his investment.

The X-Prize Foundation is currently sponsoring the Progressive Automotive X-Prize, for the fastest vehicle with 100mpg efficiency and a 200-mile range, the Archon X-Prize for Genomics for the first team that can build a device and use it to sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days or less for under $10,000, and the Google Lunar X-Prize for the first privately-funded team to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth.

The company envisions potential future competitions may include an entire suite of prizes dedicated to energy and environment, a Village Utility X-Prize, leveraging technology-based innovation to develop more effective ways to deliver power, water and connectivity to communities in need in the developing world, and life sciences X-prizes in TB DIagnostics and improving healthcare in the U.S.

But prize competitions are not limited to the X-Prize foundation. The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has sponsored several competitions, including the DARPA Grand Challenge (robot vehicles in the desert), the DARPA Urban Challenge (robot vehicles in the city) and the DARPA Balloon Challenge (wide-area team building using the Internet). NASA sponsors its Centennial Challenges including the Astronaut Glove, Power Beaming and Lunar Lander Challenges and also co-sponsors the Space Elevator Games.

More environmentally-focused competitions about as well. The DOE sponsors the L-Prize and H-Prize for innovations in lighting and hydrogen technologies. The Smart Gear Competition, developed by the World Wildlife Federation seeks “to inspire and reward practical, innovative fishing gear designs that reduce bycatch.” Of course, no article about innovation competitions would be complete without mentioning the DOE’s Solar Decathalon, where college and university teams compete to design solar-powered houses, or the upcoming American Solar Challenge, a cross-country race featuring solar-powered cars.

Further Reading:

Peter Diamandis: the joy of taking risks (newscientist.org)

An Interview with Peter Diamandis, Founder of X PRIZE: On Colonizing Space and Reinventing the Philanthropy Model (opportunitygreen.org)

Video: SpaceShipOne: Prize Flight #2 (youtube.com)

Electric Vehicles: The News Keeps Coming (triplepundit.com)

Marc Gunther: The Strange Power of Prizes (marcgunther.com)

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Amazon.com)

–

This article originally appeared on TriplePundit and is reprinted here thanks to 3P’s Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. You can find out more about Creative Commons licensing here.

I had the pleasure to speak with the animated Mr. Saba and his charming wife at the Fast Lane to CleanTech Incubator Mixer, held at Club Autosport in San Jose. Club Autosport is the current home of Saba Motors, and hosts it and a number of other cleantech companies at its “car-condominium” facility, as part of the Electronic Transportation Development Center (ETDC), a San Jose Redevelopment Agency initiative to incubate and support startups dedicated to clean automotive technologies, including battery infrastructure startup EVIN, the very unusual compressed air powered Magnetic Air Cars, and over 30 others.

SABA Motors is a competitor in the Progressive Automotive X-Prize Competition, with a $10 million dollar prize awarded to the car that, in addition to being the winner in a series of speed and endurance trials, must achieve an effective 100 miles per gallon, and adhere to a large number of very stringent design and safety criteria (complete competition details have yet to be finalized). According to Mr. Saba, these rules are so stringent that, “if the Toyota Prius were to be entered in the X-Prize competition, it would fail to meet the design criteria.” SABA’s competition include rival sports car makers Tesla Motors, Zap and Aptera, along with 37 others that have qualified to date.

The company’s strategy to win the X-Prize, and to deliver on its retail-price promise, is to reduce the amount of batteries needed by making the rest of the vehicle as lightweight as possible. Because they are some of the heaviest and most expensive components of the car, reducing the number of batteries allows the company to achieve both goals simultaneously.

Those familiar with Amory Lovins‘ work on the Hypercar concept will see much of that concept embodied in SAAB Motor’s prototype vehicle. The theory goes something like this: the lighter you make the car, as a whole, the smaller you can make the individual components. For example, a car with less mass requires less energy to move it, and the same is true for making it stop, hence smaller engines and brakes can be employed. As each component becomes smaller, it reduces the requirements for all of the other components, and becomes a compounding effect resulting in large gains in efficiency, and should ultimately result in overall cost savings in the production vehicle.

Mr. Saba demonstrated to me just how lightweight the vehicle is, by effortlessly moving it back and forth with two hands. As a matter of fact, one of his biggest obstacles is how to get more traction to the ground in such a lightweight vehicle. He cites the tires breaking free of the pavement has the biggest limiting factor in the amount of speed that the car can currently achieve.

And… just for the record, the prototype is no glorified golf cart or three-wheeled motorcycle disguised as a car. It’s a real looker, and evokes the minimalist spirit of English roadsters like the Jaguar D-Types of the 50s and 60s or even the Mazda Miata of the 90s, with the same driving-first-and-only mentality. (meaning you will probably need some nice, steampunk-y, leather goggles to keep the bugs out of your face.)

But, unlike its cousin, the Tesla Roadster, the SABA is not intended to be an expensive toy that only a few can afford. Rather, Mr. Saba believes that the only way for an electric vehicle to make a real impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to sell a whole lot of them. Mr. Saba plans on achieiving this by building a car that is not only mere transportation, but also captures the imagination. He believes that if he can do all that while making the car emissions free and under $40,000 retail, he will have a winner on his hands. (the Miata is a great example of how successful this strategy can be, and it wasn’t even emissions-free!)

Who wouldn’t want to own a car with Ferrari-like performance for the price of a well-equipped Toyota, that is zero-emissions to boot? Heck, I’ll take two!

Do you think Simon Saba will realize his vision? Tell us about it in the comments.

—-

This article originally appeared on TriplePundit and is reprinted here thanks to 3P’s Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. You can find out more about Creative Commons licensing here.

“Decisions. They are made every day. Some are made on the fly such as when a low fuel alert prompts me to stop at the nearest gas station. Some are more considered, involving detailed research and analysis, perhaps on the Internet or consulting with friends or experts. And others are made for us, by our friends and family, or our government. An important question is: are we all, given the data available to us today, making good, well-informed decisions? One thing is nearly certain, if your data isn’t accurate and accessible, a good decision isn’t likely to follow.” - Factual, Inc. CEO Gil Elbaz

As anyone who has ever tried to write a business plan knows, good, reliable data is hard to come by, and can be very expensive. Los Angeles-based startup Factual.com aims to change all that by creating a free “open data platform”.. The company believes that allowing the crowd to create, edit, discuss, share, substantiate or disagree with the data data will bring true accountability and openness to data.

Launched today with this inspiring press release/blog post, Factual.com invites anyone with an internet connection to upload and edit data, on any subject they wish, into Excel-like tables. The tables then become free, open and available to everyone. Factual even takes it one step further than the traditional Wiki model, by giving developers and content providers an API and widgets, which not only allow users to view data tables, and applications based on them, while on another company’s website, but also encourages those users to add, modify and discuss it as well. More about how this works in a few paragraphs.

Factual is the brainchild of Gil Elbaz, a self-proclaimed “data junkie”. Prior to forming Factual, he co-founded Applied Semantics (AdSense), which was acquired by Google in 2003. Elbaz says he has been “crazy about data” ever since he got his first computer, an Apple IIe, in 1983. He became particularly fascinated by the “power of the spreadsheet”, embodied by the much-touted VisiCalc program. According to Elbaz, Factual represents the path that Applied Semantics would have taken, had it not been purchased by Google.

How does it work?
Like it’s cousin, Wikipedia, Factual is inherently simple to understand and use. Most computer users would have little trouble with it’s table-based data entry. They have the option to upload data from their desktop, collect data located on the Internet through a URL, or type it in manually. They will probably want to search to see if the data already exists on Factual. (Existing data tables include The California Restaurant Database, Farmers Markets in the U.S., 2009 Clean Air Choice Vehicles and my personal favorites: Beer Qualities, Video Games & Cheats, and Cigars of the World). For example, searching for cigars currently yields 39 tables.

A table creator can choose to merge those tables in any way he sees fit. The program will execute the merge, adding columns and validating the data automatically. The validation of data is a vital component of Factual, and the company relies on several validation methods, both human-based and computer-based:

• Lots of Eyeballs: [According to Wikinomics...], the more people that view data, contribute data, modify data and debate the validity of data, the more accurate that data will be.
• Transparency: All additions and edits are saved as a history which is also easily accessible to everyone, via a pop-up when you hover over a cell that has been edited. Manual citations can be added, showing the original source of the data.
• Automation: Unlike Wikipedia, the Factual software does not rely on human input alone. The software attempts to validate data during merges by choosing edits that have been more widely accepted in the past over recent edits. New data is compared against data provided by the government, public sources and content providers.
• Open Model: Any and all changes, whether computer or human, are open to debate, and can be modified or reverted.

Once the data is uploaded and merged, users will have the option to share and access that data in a variety of ways. The simplest of these is embedding a data table in a blog or website. The process is basically the same as embedding a YouTube video or an Amazon advertising widget. Software developers will have access to Factual’s Application Programming Interface (API), allowing them to create a variety of programs based on the data tables. Expect to see everything from iPhone apps to desktop research tools.

What separates Factual from other syndicated content providers is that the widgets and APIs are bidirectional: while viewing a table on a 3rd-party provider’s website, users will be able to edit the content in real time, and the changes will be saved in the Factual repository, all without having to link back to Factual.com. Mr. Elbaz believes that this feature will lead to much faster adoption of the technology and quicker growth of the data store, which would ultimately mean higher quality data.

How do they make money?
Upon learning about Factual and whet they are up to, I was immediately struck by how useful it will be, not to mention valuable. But then I thought about how Wikipedia is essentially a non-profit, and I wondered if Factual would take the same route.

It turns out that Factual is, in fact, a for-profit company, although it does not plan on earning money from the data itself, but will instead focus on value-added services. These wold include things like dedicated support and advanced tools. In this way, the company is able to achieve its mission of providing an open, collaborative environment where anyone can easily view, contribute, improve and share data.

What about copyrights?
Factual discourages its users from uploading data that are confidential, restricted from publication by contract , or that was obtained by illegal means (e.g. cracking a protected database). Although the company allows users to add “enforceable terms and conditions” to any table they contribute, it discourages the practice, and reminds anyone who does so that it is their responsibility to enforce any terms. According to the company’s FAQ, “Raw data, facts, and general ideas are not protected by copyright law. If you’ve legally gathered a bunch of data and post it to Factual, it is in most cases free for the world to use and build upon.”

Fin
This technology should be insanely useful for sustainability professionals, for whom finding reliable data can be a major challenge. I would encourage anyone with access to such data to share it freely, so that we all can benefit. As a matter of fact, several socially-conscious organizations are already using Factual, including LiveStrong.com (cancer provider database), The Marine Animal Coalition (Vegan-only restaurants), and Beginning Farmers (list of 500 farmers’ markets).

Have you tried Factual.com yet? What do you think? What are some ways that access to open data might be useful to you or your business? Please let us know in the comments.

—-

This article originally appeared on TriplePundit and is reprinted here thanks to 3P’s Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. You can find out more about Creative Commons licensing here.

LapWorks, located at LaptopDesk.net, is a small company that makes a variety of low-cost laptop lap desks and desktop stands. The laptop desks are designed to span the width of your lap when seated in a comfortable position, and are approximately 21 inches wide. They are lightweight, made of ABS plastic which is slotted along the length to reduce weight and provide ventilation. All of the models fold in half and have a small, hinged tab which allows them to both fold flat, for portability, or to open up into a V-shape, to act as a stand. There are rubber pads placed at strategic intervals along the surface, which are supposed to keep your laptop from slipping.

Please read on for my complete review of the LaptopDesk.

When I purchased my first LaptopDesk, I had a choice between the LaptopDesk 2.0, the Lightweight or the Futura. I chose the 2.0, because it seemed more sturdy than the Lightweight, and was rated to hold laptops up to 12 lbs. At the time, the Futura Model was more expensive and didn’t seem to offer any extra benefits, besides looking different. I even ordered the MouzPad, an extension which clips onto the desk and allows you to use a mouse.

At first, the LaptoDesk 2.0 worked pretty much as advertised. It was lightweight, portable, and kept my lap cool. It made using my laptop on the train much more enjoyable, because I no longer had to hold my knees together to keep the laptop in my lap. When I would get to a café, I simply folded up the desk and extended the riser tab, and my screen was almost four inches higher, which made for much more comfortable viewing.

It quickly became apparent, however, that I was not going to be able to use a mouse the way it was advertised on the website. The MouzPad attachment was sometimes difficult to snap on to the LaptopDesk. It clipped on in a way that was not very intuitive, and you were never quite sure if it was going to stay in place. Although it did manage to hold together pretty well, the surface of the MouzPad was very slippery, and my mouse would continuously fall off my lap unless I could somehow manage to keep my lap perfectly level. Since I usually was sitting in my easy chair or on a couch, this was nearly impossible, and became enormously frustrating. I gave up trying to use my wireless Mac mouse, and switched to a wired mouse, because the MouzPad did have a place where you could clip in the wire, but even this only managed to keep my mouse in reach. Invariably, it would fall off the platform every time I took my hands off the mouse.

Not being able to use a mouse with the LaptopDesk was not a deal-breaker for me, although it really would have been nice to have. I continued to use the LaptopDesk for several more weeks, until I encountered another problem: the plastic riser tabs were starting to crack. This was quite worrisome, given how new the product was, especially considering the company’s claims of indestructibility. Luckily for me, LapWorks customer service was quite nice, and they explained that there had been a bad batch of risers which were not molded at the correct temperature, making them brittle. They immediately sent a replacement part, and assured me that the LaptopDesk itself did not have this problem.

Unfortunately, I did not find out until almost a year later that this was not the case. Cracks began to appear in the hinges and, before long, the entire hinge on one side was cracked through! Despite repeated inquiries, the company was unwilling to provide a replacement, citing their 30-day limited warranty for defective products. I thought that this was a bad call on their part, given that I had uncovered the original problem with the riser months prior, indicating that the entire product had been defective from the beginning.

By this time, the LaptopDesk had become an indispensable part of my laptop kit. Since I didn’t like the design or price of other laptop desks that were out on the market, I decided to bite the bullet and try one of Lapworks’ other models. At only $29, the Futura model had come down in price to match the other models. The Futura is a much better design, and seems to be made of a different type of plastic. The design has much larger air spaces, beefier hinges and larger rubber anti-slide tabs. Where the 2.0 is flat, clunky and unattractive, the Futura is much more pleasing to the eye. If you feel like paying a few dollars extra, you can eve get it in a selection of colors.

My experience with the Futura, after almost a year of constant daily use has been great. It shows no signs of cracking, and the finish does not mar or scratch. It performs very well in terms of keeping my lap cool, and the much more substantial riser is also in like-new condition.

It still remains to be seen whether or not I will eventually experience any of the same problems that cropped up in the original product, but I do not think that will be the case. My feeling is that the company was still working out a lot of kinks in its supply chain at the time, and that these problems have most likely been solved. If properly molded, a product like this should be almost indestructible with ordinary use. However, If you are considering purchasing a LaptopDesk, I would recommend steering clear of the LaptopDesk 2.0, and go with the Futura model, just to be safe.

Over the past 2 years or so, I have spent an inordinate amount of time in coffee shops and cafés, either studying for one of my MBA classes or looking for work. While these places are great for getting out of the house and being around other people, they are an ergonomic nightmare for laptop users. The keyboard/mouse/trackpad is always too high, as when placed on a table, or the screen is too low, like when sitting in a big leather chair or couch. Either way, I was always in for a world of hurt. That is, until I discovered the Logitech DiNovo Wireless Keyboard, Mac Edition.

The DiNovo Edge is a Bluetooth wireless keyboard with a built-in trackpad. It’s combination of sleek looks, performance and features made it the perfect solution. After almost a year of constant use, I can honestly say that it is one of my favorite technology purchases, ever! Read on for my complete review.

When I began my search for a wireless keyboard to use at the cofeeshop, I knew exactly what I needed:

• Bluetooth wireless
• Mac compatible
• Does not require a USB dongle
• Built-in pointing device,
• Pointer on the right and the buttons on the left. This would allow me to use both hands.

It’s amazing how few wireless keyboards met these criteria. After weeks of searching and frustration I was only able to come up with a few options: either they did not have a built-in mouse, they did not work with the Mac, or they weren’t Bluetooth. At the time, my best two picks were a no-name Chinese-manufactured infrared keyboard or the $179 Logitech DiNovo Edge. On the one hand, the Chinese keyboard looked cheap, and I doubted infrared would work in this configuration (infrared is line-of-site, and the keyboard would be underneath the laptop most of the time.) On the other hand, the Edge was just too much more than I was willing to spend, despite the rave reviews. Luckily for me, just a few weeks later, the fine people on SlickDeals.net posted a deal on the Mac version of the Edge, which ended up being about $65. I was in!

Layout
The DiNovo Edge is a really nice, slim, wireless keyboard with a built-in touchpad. It is much wider than a standard keyboard, and is made to sit on your lap comfortably. This wide stance is where most other keyboards fail for this particular application, because it allows you to sit in a natural, relaxed position, and you don’t have to hold your knees together to keep it in place.

It has the touchpad on the left and mouse keys on both the left and right, so you can use it easily with two hands without having to move your hands all over the place. The pretty standard layout includes function keys across the top with home/end/forward delete/page up/page down and arrow keys on the right. Intended as a media center keyboard, there are play/pause/fast forward keys on the left and a neat volume touchpad on the right, including a handy mute button.

Mac users will appreciate the addition of the forward delete key, missing on Apple products, and the way that the media controls work as well as an Apple Remote. The media controls have turned out to be one of my favorite features, because they allow me to mute for a phone call, or to jump to the next song in iTunes, without moving my hands from the keyboard. This is a major improvement from the complex multiple-key Quicksilver commands that was my prior best solution.

The only real downside to the layout would be the lack of a numeric keypad. While a deal-breaker for some, I find this to me a minor inconvenience which the other features more than make up for.

Look and Feel
One of the best things about the Edge (among many good things), is how it feels to type on it. have a tendency to use a lot of force when typing, so a “chiclet” style keyboard, like the new Apple keyboards, is way too hard on my fingers. Logitech has been able to provide the feel of a long keystroke and solid bottom that is the hallmark of full-sized keyboards. What’s amazing is that they were able to do it in a keyboard that is only about 1/4 inch thick and extremely light. It is very comfortable for me to type on.

As if all of the other features weren’t enough, it even looks great! This is a keyboard that was designed to look good sitting in its charging cradle in your living room, and has the sleek minimalist looks that are the hallmark of Apple products. It’s definitely the best looking keyboard I’ve ever seen, and matches perfectly with my 15″ MacBook Pro.

Performance
It’s really hard to find an area where the Edge doesn’t excel. Consider the battery life: Logitech claims that the DiNovo Edge can go up to a month before having to be recharged! Although I have not conducted any type of scientific test, this claim seems to hold water. In the entire time I have owned it, I have never once run the battery completely out. This is saying a lot, since the Edge lives in my bag, and I frequently forget to charge anything the lives in my bag.

I haven’t had any problems with the DiNovo Edge, from a quality standpoint. It has held up quite well, so far.

Cons
It’s really hard to say anything bad about this keyboard. However, there are a few minor flaws that have popped up:

• Sticky touchpad: The touchpad has a very sensitive “touch to click” feature, which can’t be disabled. This has caused me some grief when it has caused me to inadvertently remove items from my Dock! According to the Logitech tech support forums, this is a hardware issue that cannot be fixed. While not a deal-breaker, it can be quite frustrating. I have learned to pull my hand off of the touchpad for a second when I see it dragging something that I had not intended.
• Bluetooth crashes the Mac: Quite often, my Mac will crash when attempting to connect to the keyboard. I’m pretty sure that this is a Mac problem not a problem with the DiNovo Edge Keyboard, specifically, because I have experienced a similar problem with my Mac wireless keyboard, but it is nonetheless extremely frustrating.
• Dust magnet: The Edge has a glossy finish, which looks nice, but is a magnet for dust.

Conclusion
As you can tell, I can’t say enough good things about the Logitech DiNovo Edge Mac Edition Keyboard. It has literally saved me from quite a bit of pain, and my repetitive stress injuries are improving because of it. I’ve come to love it so much, that I now use it in my home office, in place of my purchasing a keyboard tray. The fit, finish, layout and performance are all top-notch. Even with a couple of minor of annoyances, it still stands out for me as an example of what can be done with really good design.

The best part is that they can be had for under $100, if you search diligently. Don’t be afraid of the $179 sticker price shown on the Logitech site. I got my Mac version on Amazon for around $65 during a special sale. The current Mac version is on Amazon for $89 and the PC version is $134. I’m sure you can find the PC one even cheaper if you look around.

Have you had any experiences, good or bad, with this keyboard or others? I’d love to read you comments!

Steve