Did That Restaurant Pass Its Health Inspection? Now Yelp Will Tell You

Expected to reach 25 billion connected devices by 2020, the emerging class of "internet of things" companies are starting to realize its potential to address global poverty by helping the international development community narrow the gap between data and action.

In order to encourage people to properly dispose of their waste, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has installed smart vending machines for recyclable waste at Connaught Place and India Gate. In return for making the sustainable waste choice, users receive monetary rewards via e-wallet.

The Send Me SFMOMA program allows people to text a number with a request based on a variable such as a object, mood, or color and receive back an image of an appropriate work in the SFMOMA collection. Through this service, which SFMOMA has made open source for other museums to use, the museum is able to connect with the public and ‘display’ a much higher percentage of its holdings.

The New York Public Library Insta Novels program makes public domain works available to be read on Instagram. Featuring engaging artwork and a user friendly format, Insta Novels make literature available to users with a smartphone and provide a path to digital engagement for the library.

Through augmented reality (AR) effects, street artists have created surprising, novel experiences in museums and in public. Using an app, viewers can see murals in motion, art floating in the air, and new ‘additions’ to a museums holdings.

Readers on the BBC website can now find out more about select stories through “Appy Helper,” a module that provides background about an ongoing, complex story. The module works through both a chat-style interface that readers navigate via prompts or a more linear timeline display.

In 2017, German newsroom Suddeutsche Zeitung began reporting election polling numbers in such a way that the uncertainty of the poll—caused by a limited sample size or respondents lying to pollsters—was visualized in the reporting. Through this method, information is conveyed to readers but in such a way that doesn’t erase uncertainty and doubt about the results.

When New York legislators abolished a state law that had long shielded police officers’ disciplinary records from public scrutiny, they were not just responding to recent protests but also to activism over many years by reform advocates and families of victims of police violence. Long-running legal challenges had failed to pry the records loose. But activists – opposed by police unions and their allies – had used public testimony, publicity, and their families’ stories to lay the groundwork for changes that then came quickly after George Floyd’s death sparked nationwide protests of police brutality.

Ameelio is a technology startup launched by Yale students to facilitate free communication between people who are incarcerated and loved ones. In their first six months, the group went from sending 300 to over 4,000 letters a week to facilities in the United States. Their initial goal was to provide a not-for-profit alternative to the oftentimes predatory prison telecommunications industry. Recently they began a voter registration initiative where they send registration instructions, a blank voter registration application, and ballot request form to people who are incarcerated and eligible to vote.

New Hampshire's official response to nationwide protests of racial bias in policing lacks a critical element: a statewide database showing the race of drivers and passengers in police stops and arrests. Unlike neighboring Vermont, which since 2014 has kept a data-informed eye on racial disparities in policing, New Hampshire officials say they cannot afford to integrate such data from local agencies. Instead, those local agencies are now under a legislative mandate to report what they track to their communities. Advocates say statewide analysis would better inform police training and policies.