Editorial: City government calls for tech support

Allan Frank, city CIO

Here’s a test.

Just how innovative and influential, forward-thinking yet practical is the technology community in Philadelphia? Because you’re being challenged.

We’re still reeling from a presentation that Allan Frank, the city’s chief information officer, gave at a meeting of Refresh Philly Monday night.

The Nutter administration is investing $100 million during the next four years into city technology, including a complete overhaul of Phila.gov, as he told 75 mostly professional, tech-savvy 30 and 40-somethings in a modern, white-walled conference room on the 45th floor of the Comcast Center yesterday.

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Shameless plug: BCNI Philly is this Saturday

This Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Temple University, the entire TP crew along with 150 of our closest friends will be tackling a problem that is very near and dear to our hearts: the current state of news and journalism.

The journalism industry has had numerous conferences and back door CEO meetings, but some of us think its time to try something different, thus BarCamp NewsInnovation was born. Many of us have been yelling at the TV over bias, decrying the lack of certain stories going uncovered in our local paper and wondering how the media industry can fully (and profitably) embrace the Web.

So we’ll be taking the BarCamp format so popular for tech events and applying it to news. Journalists, media types, bloggers, techies, programmers, designers, executives, students and anyone else who is interested will be converging at Temple University for 8 hours of news talk. Like our beloved BarCamp Philly, anyone can make a presentation, as long as its about news. We hope thins brings some frank, unconventional talk to an industry that needs it.

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WiMAX mobile broadband coming to Philly this year

Clearwire Wireless has announced plans to expand its WiMAX mobile broadband network to eight major markets in 2009 including Philadelphia, according to a press release.

Currently, the service is available in Portland and Baltimore, and offers download speeds up to 4Mbps and upload speeds of 384Kbps. Unlimited browsing starts at $50 per month and on the lower end of its pricing tiers, a 24-hour pass is offered for $10. Clearwire has a number of devices that support its WiMAX network, including a modem for home networks and a USB modem for on-the-go use.

While we’re stoked about next generation mobile broadband access in Philadelphia, WiMAX faces tough competition from Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, another next gen mobile broadband solution. The battle between the two network technologies is the mobile equivalent of Blu-ray versus HD-DVD.

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Editorial: There’s no better time to develop a database to track local government

In Trenton this week, lawmakers will discuss creating an online database that would track state contracts, loans, and other expenditures and would be easily accessible on the state’s Web site. We like the sound of this project, which according to officials, would be comparable to relative budget tracking systems that cost in the ballpark of $400,000.

Lest we concede technological superiority to our brethren in the East, Philadelphia’s tech community has a unique opportunity to demand the same accountability from our local government by developing a citizen-managed online database that would track important public records.

Tomorrow, the metropolitan area will lose a valuable contributor of government accountability. Hallwatch.org is closing shop, according to an announcement made on the site on January 23.

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