Thursday, June 19. 2008

What's the next hot geographic data set?

And how do we find it? How about looking at new devices. The New York Times reviews the Ikan, a countertop scanner that captures barcodes from grocery packages to build your shopping list for a delivery service. That's not so interesting, but this is: the device, after being customized for you will note which of the packages can be recycled in your municipality. So, there's no good database of the recycling rules for US cities/communities? Apparently not:

A big green Recycle log appears on the Ikan’s screen whenever you scan a package that’s recyclable in your town, warning you not to throw it away; very, very smart. (The company researches each municipality’s recycling policy individually as Ikan units are purchased, so the logo may not appear the first day you own the Ikan.)

Posted by Adena Schutzberg at 06:00 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

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Why not have a scanner in rental cars so that the book of coupons for places to eat and go show up on the map so I know that the Lobster House is a block from my hotel and the Steak House special would require me to drive across town?

If you want, everything is recylable. Sometimes, paper, pen, and a mind are better than the machine.

#1 Colorado (Link) on 2008-06-20 08:40 (Reply)

Sometimes, in a formal planned neighborhood (like a Neighborhood Association), the rules regarding recycling are available which may be different rules than for the municipality itself. Joining that info to a database of neighborhood boundaries would be easy enough. But you are right - getting the recycling rules themselves is probably quite hard.

#2 DarrinClement (Link) on 2008-06-23 12:20 (Reply)

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