As Congress returns for their July session, the Sunlight Foundation is excited to announce our free Congress app for iOS devices that allows anyone to get the latest from Washington. Download it here.
Continue readingThe Data and Tech Behind Sitegeist
It's been three weeks since we launched Sitegeist and the response has greatly exceeded (my) expectations! There have been over 27,000 downloads of the iOS and Android apps and a flood of feedback emails. Thanks again to the Knight Foundation and IDEO for their help in creating the app!
Continue readingSitegeist: A Week After Launch
Exactly one week ago we launched Sitegeist, an app to learn more about your surroundings through visualizations of publicly available data. We are immensely proud of Sitegeist and thrilled by the response!
Continue readingSitegeist: Uncover the Data Around You
Today the Sunlight Foundation unveils our latest app to reinforce the power of the data around you. It's called Sitegeist, a simple iPhone and Android app that presents a huge amount of information from disparate sources in straight-forward infographics.
Continue readingNew Features for Ad Hawk
Since we launched Ad Hawk a few weeks ago it's been downloaded thousands of times, featured as an Essential App by Gizmodo and praised by many media outlets. We're most excited to see users actively using it to learn more about congressional and presidential ads as they air - download the app here if you haven't already.
Continue readingAd Hawk: Identify Political Ads As They Air
Ad Hawk is our new iPhone and Android app that empowers you to identify political ads as they air and immediately learn about the secretive groups spending money to influence your vote.
Continue readingWhipCast – Promotion Isn’t Transparency
On Tuesday, the House Majority Whip's office released a "WhipCast" app through the iOS, Android, and Blackberry app stores.
It contains updates from the House floor, and various documents and publications from the Whip's office. It's being billed by the House Republican leadership team as "a step towards fulfilling the House Republican's commitment to transparency and accessibility". Unfortunately, there's nothing transparent or accessible about the app. Most of the information available through the app is extremely partisan, and serves to push House leadership's talking points.
Continue readingSunlight at Google I/O
I spent most of this week in San Francisco for Google I/O. While Google I/O doesn't have a whole lot to do with open government, we do enough Android development in the service of open government that it seemed worth my attendance.
In the end, Google I/O was a mixed bag, offering nice goodies and announcements, but at the cost of tightly crowded sessions and what felt like an embarrassment of riches.
Continue readingSunlight Labs & Google Summer of Code 2011
We're proud to announce we've been accepted as a mentoring application for the Google Summer of Code 2011.
If you aren't familiar with Google Summer of Code, it is a great opportunity for college students and open source organizations to work together. Google pays students a $5000 stipend in exchange for their work on an eligible project. For more details about the program in general visit the GSoC 2011 website.
This is our third year participating and we're looking forward to another great summer and a new batch of students and projects.
Continue readingCongress 3.0 for Android
If you have an Android phone (or tablet) and haven't checked out the Congress app for Android in a while, now is a good time to give it another look.
Today we're releasing version 3.0, which, in addition to a redesigned theme and layout, adds:
- Live updates from the House floor.
- Upcoming committee hearings in the House and Senate.
- Keyword search for bills (e.g. "health care", "deficit", "immigration")
- Details on any amendment that receives a vote.
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