Zeus of the ‘NetReviews of the Coolest Sites on the Net

Hope everyone had a happy New Years!  I have a feeling 2010 is going to be a good year.  But of course many things, mainly the economy, still has a ways to go.  And unfortunately whenever the economy goes south, crime rates usually increases as a result, and 2009 was no different.  So if you’ve ever wondered what crimes (and how many) have occurred in your city or neighborhood, you may want to check out this cool site.  The site is called CrimeMapping and according to them their goal is to “provide the public with valuable information about recent crime activity in their neighborhood.”  Seems simple enough, but it’s actually quite an ambitious task.

Using a GIS platform to display the crimes on a map, the site right now has information from roughly 100 cities mapped out (the map itself is pretty cool) from all across the U.S.  They use easy to decipher symbols for each of the various crime categories, like Arson, Burglary, Vandalism, etc., so you can quickly tell what crimes were committed at a particular location.  The overall look and feel of the website is really sleek and the navigation and map itself is very intuitive, which I like a lot.  I think CrimeMapping has the potential to be a very powerful resource for the public.  So what do you guys think, would you use this site?

This self-described “computational knowledge engine” can give detailed information on any number of (objective) queries, and can do so just as quickly as any search engine out there today.  The difference is however that instead of ten blue links, users receive the information, or answer, they were looking for.  This sites name, WolframAlpha.com, may be obscure but I believe in the next decade it will be anything but.

The potential uses for this type of technology are limitless.  I think this site and its technology is the first step towards the ultimate goal of ambient findability.  Forty years from now when we look back at the early days of the information age and technology boom, I think that WolframAlpha will be on the short list of important technological advances that changed the course of history.