Indonesian election aided by Silicon Valley coder's use of API. Google reportedly testing an "Explore Nearby" feature in Maps. Plus: a Facebook video scam that is hard to block because of an API, and Chrome replaces 30 year-old Windows font rendering technology.
Silicon Valley Coder Helps Transparency of Indonesian Election
Indonesia completed its election today, declaring Jakarta governor Joko Widodo the winner. For months questions about whether the election might be stolen were rampant. In fact the concern was so high that it led a coder in Silicon Valley to create an API to help ensure the results were transparent. The site, pilpres2014.org was developed in a 24 hour period by Henry Tan Setiawan. As Enrico Lukman reports in TechInAsia,
He was asking himself about what he could do quickly, all the way from the US, to help Indonesia’s democracy at a time when the nation faces a constitutional crisis. He realised that the available data is tough to navigate, which could deter a lot of online helpers; a user would have to click on each district level one by one and look at the scanned documents to see the numbers. He quickly coded a crawler that could get the data from KPU’s DA1 documents directly, get the number of votes, and sort it based on each district level.
With the code you can process data without doing manual calculations.
Google Maps May Soon Have New "Explore Nearby" Feature
Google Maps, whose new version was released last week, may incorporate a feature called "explore nearby" that provides more detailed control of location based data. As Ryan Whitwam reports in Android Police,
Anyone can access the current version of the Nearby feature in Maps by tapping on "Explore Nearby" when in the search interface. This lets you pick a type of establishment (food, drinks, etc.) and get a list of possibilities. The updated Explore Nearby gets its own button on the bottom right of the map screen. You can still pick from various categories, but it's split up into more focused groups and includes points of interest now. There's also a drop-down to select the time of day for more appropriate suggestions. Unless you want to hit a bar in the early afternoon. I'm not one to judge.
Apparently some people already have this new version, suggesting a new system wide release is imminent.
API News You Shouldn't Miss
- Chrome gets sharp after dumping 30-year-old Windows technology
- Google Is Testing An Enhanced "Explore Nearby" Feature In Google Maps
- Online Payment Provider Stripe Launches in Australia
- Funny Facebook video scam leaves unamusing Trojan
- Silicon Valley coder wants to defend Indonesia’s democracy with election vote counter and neat data visualizations
