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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NBC 10 and Foursquare partner to experiment in ways to follow local breaking news

NBC Philadelphia announces a partnership with Foursquare this week, which Mashable dives deeper into:

NBC 10 has promised to assign one reporter to use the station’s Foursquare account to report on a lead news story each day. He or she will check in upon arrival at the event location and provide regular updates as the story develops. NBC 10 plans to expand this type of coverage with multiple news events per day, and by rolling out individual reporter accounts.

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MyHeartMap Challenge aims to crowdsource locations of all defribrillators in Philadelphia

From the Wired Epicenter blog:

This September, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine will launch the MyHeartMap Challenge, a contest to track down hundreds of automated external defibrillators (AED’s) throughout the city. These lifesaving devices automatically diagnose a person having a heart attack, and if necessary, deliver an electric shock to get the heart beating normally again. AED’s are all over the place: the local gym, gas station, or hotel. But most people don’t know exactly where they are.

And the article goes on:

The idea is to “create the first comprehensive log of AEDs all over Philly,” according to the Penn Medicine news blog. That map would then be available in an emergency – if you called 911 they could tell you exactly where to find the nearest device, or you could look it up immediately on your cell phone.

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Tweet love for Michael Nutter and other Links [VIDEO]

• Taking a Social Media Cue from Politics [Carr] — Highlighting Michael Nutter’s use of Twitter
• Where Will Your Future IT Workers Come From? [CIO] A profile of young tech groups, including Philly’s own TechGirlz
• A Hall Pass for bureaucracy: Code for America Philadelphia [Dangerously Awesome] Indy Hall’s Alex Hillman on the civic hacking crew
• Lokadot’s Free iPhone App for Touring Philadelphia [Geekadelphia] Visit it at Lokadot.com.
• Media Bureau—An Artists’ Colony Teeming With Talent—Flourishes in NoLibs [Philly Weekly]
• Another HQ leaves Philly, what’s up with that? [Philadelphia Business Journal] — Cigna
• Kembrel Wants to Link Designer Labels to College Consumers [Forbes] — “Three Wharton MBAs have started a business that uses the Web to help designer clothing makers reach college students.”
• Aol Video visits Indy Hall [Aol]