Docket in Your Pocket app hits 500,000th search of PA court records

Docket In Your Pocket, an application that can pull Pennsylvania court records dating back to 2000, hit its 500,000th search last week.

The app, which launched in October and was covered by the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Business Journal and NBC 10, is now available on iPhone and Android smartphones as well as many tablet devices and cost $2.99.

So far, Pennsylvania’s court data are the only state records the app can access, but the developers, Iowa-based attorney Matt Haindfield and computer programmer Tim Byrnes, are hoping to expand to other states, according to the latest press release.

To test Docket in Your Pocket the first people this reporter searched on the iPhone version of the app were my brand new employers — Technically Philly. At best, the hope was to quickly dig up some real dirt. At worst, surely one of these Philly residents had incurred a traffic violation over the last few years.

Nada.

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MyHeartMap Challenge launches contest and mobile app to crowdsource map of Philly defibrillators

Updated 2/9/12: The MyHeartMap Challenge will run for six weeks beginning Jan 31 through March 13, 2012. Applications to participate in the challenge are now open to the public. The application was developed by GIS firm Azavea.

Automated external defibrillators are life-saving devices located in buildings and public spaces like fire extinguishers across the country. But no one really knows where they are in any broader way.

With the MyHeartMap Challenge, launching this week, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania is hoping to crowdsource the location of every AED in Philadelphia and raise awareness about the tools, as Technically Philly previously reported.

Here’s how the challenge will work: interested participants should register at the MyHeartMap site and download the contest app to a smartphone. If you find an AED, take a picture of it. The app will geotag the photo for the Penn researchers who plan to use the information to create a database and comprehensive map of all the AED’s stashed throughout Philadelphia county.

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iTrans: native SEPTA regional rail iOS app has ‘three killer features’ that sets it apart

iTrans SEPTA is the localized regional rail-specific version of a popular native mass transit app with, as Brooklyn web developer Adam Ernst describes it, “three killer features: offline access, live departure info, and push alerts.”

• Offline access: “Since schedules are stored right on your device, you can pull up the times within a couple seconds at most, no matter how spotty your cell connection,” he said.
• Live departure info: This “is incredibly useful for checking your train while you walk to the station. Right on the timetable view, iTrans shows you if each train is on time or late and how late it is,” he said.
• Push alerts: “You can just set an alert for your train line and get instant push alerts whenever there’s a disruption announced by SEPTA. You can even set alerts for individual trains: so if you usually take the 5:45 train from Market East, tap a switch and we’ll send you a push alert whenever it’s delayed on the days you choose,” he said.

The app costs $3.99 in the app store. Live departure info and push alerts are an additional 99 cents per month, said Ernst, since they “require server-side resources that I have to maintain.”

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SEPTAlking: voice command SEPTA schedule tool launches [VIDEO DEMO]

A tool that allows users to call in for voice activated SEPTA schedule updates has launched.

Called SEPTAlking and built by Voxeo Labs developer Mark Headd, the tool is particularly suited for those who drive from homes or work to a SEPTA train station and need to confirm train arrivals, departures and delays.

The tool also has text and IM functionality. To give it a try, users can call or text (215) 987-5418 and be prompted for details. The project uses Tropo, a service from Headd’s West Coast-based Voxeo. Currently, it is focused on the regional rail.

Visit the SEPTAlking.com website here.

Headd began developing the project at the Apps for SEPTA hackathon that he helped organize and Technically Philly co-sponsored. He also demoed SEPTAlking to a roomful of amused SEPTA executives at a recent event.

Headd says he plans to continue to develop the project and seeks feedback on improvements or bugs.

It Happened Here: location-based iPhone, Android discovery app launches Philly version

It Happened Here, a location-based, news-driven U.S. city exploration application for iPhone and Android, has launched a Philadelphia version.

Featuring 200 geo-located events and growing for Philly — from the familiar Revolution-era notes to more modern sites like film locations and celebrity sightings — the application has versions for five other cities. The $2.99 price gets a user a single city.

Built by D.C.-based development firm Mobile Surroundings, the application adds to the discovery craze by doing a good job of including both the historic and the modern. Though the density of events are reliably highest near Old City, other inner-ring neighborhoods are represented, too.

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SEPTA developer showcase puts realtime schedule apps on display for transit agency officials [VIDEO]

Developer Reed Lauber presents NEXTSepta, his application using the SEPTA real time API. A dozen other projects were displayed at the showcase inside SEPTA headquarters to a roomful of transit agency officials.

Those in the open gov movement call it ‘evangelizing.’

By not letting technology be the end but the beginning and taking projects to decision makers to improve alternatives, the civic-minded technologist can make development easier for the next guy (or gal). Philadelphia has seen much more of that in the last year. Friday marked another installment.

More than a dozen local transit application developers held captive an audience of more than 40 SEPTA officials with a clear message: keep providing stable, real-time APIs and related data sources, and we’ll keep building cool, useful tools that the public will use.

The SEPTA developer showcase, organized by the transit agency emerging technologies lead Mike Zaleski, was a follow up to the October Apps for SEPTA hackathon, which Zaleski and SEPTA endorsed and was organized by Voxeo Labs hacker Mark Headd and the Devnuts crew. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly was a sponsor of the hackathon.]

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Temple and Mobile Monday host mobile app development forum Thursday following $700k grant

Later this week, developers, entrepreneurs and investors will meet to talk about the future of mobile app development in light of a notable Temple University grant that is focused on just that.
 
Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic, the local event organization focused on mobile issues — which has been ramping up its attention to app development as of late — will kick-off the 2011 Mobile Application Forum and Bootcamp this Thursday afternoon. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly is a media sponsor of this event].

“[Mobile Monday] has always been very business focused. We’re aiming to get wider and encompass the development community and the app ecosystem,” says Chuck Sacco, Mobile Monday’s president and chair.

“Our aim is to help any businesses that are trying to make decisions about mobile. What should they be doing? Where should they invest resources?”

To coordinate, the organization is working closely with Fox School of Business early-stage venture forum program Mid-Atlantic Diamond Ventures and Temple’s new Urban Apps and Maps Studio, the $700,000 grant project we covered last month.

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Lavahound: location-based iOS app from Wayne enters crowded ‘discovery’ market

Three entrepreneurs with a hodgepodge of experience hold court around a 4 foot by 6 foot breakfast table in the attic of one of their homes in Wayne. They often keep a bowl of fruit in the middle, where each partner can reach it.

“We’re in a classic startup space,” said Sean McCloskey, the co-founder of Lavahound, a versatile, location-based iOS application built for discovery. Clients, including those they have and those they want to have, tend to be large enterprises hoping to gamify existing experiences, like universities, amusement parks or other institutions seeking an interactive experience around location.

Like Sesame Place, the familiar, family theme park in Bucks County, that is currently an alpha user of Lavahound, around their ‘Spooktacular‘ event that runs to the end of October.

“We’ve created a photo treasure hunt around the park that encourages visitors to find various places of interest and trick or treat stations around the park using their mobile phone,” said McCloskey, 30, who adds that engagement is high among trial users.  “Our app gives visitors a map that pinpoints what to find, a gallery of the images that shift in accordance to where you are, and info related to what you are finding.”

Next, the Lavahound team wants to move into the tourism and education fields, both crowded markets, he said.

Indeed, location-based services and gamification are a hot market nationally right now, a concern, McCloskey said, that doesn’t have him worried because of the sleeker, faster-moving product and the team that surrounds him.

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NEXT Septa: developer Reed Lauber launches subway, bus and trolley schedule app

Transit applications and the data that supports them have a way of inspiring those closest to their use.

Days before the first Apps for SEPTA hackathon, the latest in a tradition of mass transit tools for Philadelphians, is bubbling to the surface: NEXT-Septa.

[Full Disclosure: Technically Philly is sponsoring the hackathon.]

“The goal is to provide a simple, fast and pleasing way to get the next few arrival times for SEPTA bus, subway and trolley routes,” said Reed Lauber, who called it a learning project. “It is specifically not intended to be a comprehensive SEPTA app. It aims to do this one job and do it well.”

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Apps for Communities: contest to make local information more usable closes Oct. 3

An update from Code for America on a national project around civic apps:

Apps for Communities challenges developers and designers with creating apps that improve daily life in cities by making local public information more personalized, usable, and actionable. Led by the FCC and the Knight Foundation, the apps contest is has had over 45 submissions so far, and the deadline is approaching: October 3!

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