HackDays across Canada!
Big news! We wrapped up the most recent HackTO in Toronto in September with a promise to come back with plans for our next Hack event. We’ve got something far more exciting than just another Hack event in Toronto: We are taking HackTO nation-wide and will be holding hacking events in Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and many more cities across Canada. So please expect us, welcome us and come out to code!
We’re calling this traveling circus of mad-hackery HackDays — keep an eye out for us!
We’re still putting the full schedule together, but our first trans-Canada HackDay event will be “HackMTL” — in Montreal, on Saturday November 27th, 2010. We are actively looking for local Montreal companies to supply our eager hackers with APIs they can use. So what does it mean for HackMTL? The same successful formula as HackTO:
- Great APIs to work with
- Awesome developers to meet and team with
- We will provide an awesome space to work in, breakfast, lunch, snacks and API support and
- Fantastic prizes for the best applications and GLORY!
If you’re in Montreal, and spending a Saturday building new applications on top of some of the coolest public APIs around sounds like fun, come join us! Come with some friends and hack as a team, or just come on your own and make new friends while you hack. The last HackTO was a blast: peek at some of the applications built.
HackDays are run by volunteers — without the extraordinary support of our community and sponsors, well… there would be no HackDays! So without further ado let us introduce our latest sponsor: Yellow Pages.
Yellow Pages Group support is making it possible to hold HackDays events across Canada starting with Montreal. YPG recently opened its own API with the launch of YellowAPI to allow developers to tap into the more than 1.5 million business listings across Canada. We are very excited to grow our developer community and to meet you all. Stay tuned for HackMTL registration details!
HackTO mad props!
HackTO2 wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support of our lovely sponsors, API providers and judges.
We’d like to take this opportunity to extend a huge thank you to all of the peeps who made this event such a success!
Sponsors
These fine folks (please excuse the self-promotion) helped pay for prizes, snacks and beer. Yesssss!
And these fine folks provided all the pizza we could eat at lunch!
API Providers
Much of the fun of HackTO depends on the APIs available for us to use. Big thanks to the following teams for providing access to their APIs as well as awesome and much-appreciated API expertise on site!
PixMatch (Idée and data from Internet Archive)
YellowAPI (Yellow Pages Group)
Judges
And of course let us not forget our wonderful judges! Their experience in technology and outstanding achievement in the field of excellence made them a natural choice to judge our apps. Not to mention their unshakeable resistance to bribes.
And of course a final thank you to all of the talented developers, coders, hackers and geek enthusiasts who came out to HackTO2. We laughed, we cried, and we made some awesome apps in a ridiculously short amount of time.
Thank you to all, and if you are interested in joining us for the next HackTO please sign up for our newsletter on hackto.ca.
HackTO2: It is a wrap! Until next time.
Another successful HackTO has come and gone; we hope you had as much fun attending as we did hosting! There was so much talent packed into the ideeplex, I’m surprised zombies couldn’t smell the steaming brains from miles away.
Many of you have put your completed HackTO projects online, and I have included links to those projects here to share with the rest of the HackTO gang. If your project is missing from this post, please drop us a line and we’ll add it.
Nom Nom Nom Rank (Winner: First Place)
By: Adam McKerlie, Ash Christopher and Terence Lo
Using: Yellow Pages API, Google Weather API, and the Foursquare API
Description: Most work places in dense urban areas are surrounded by plenty of restaurants. With too many options, lunch decision paralysis is a very real problem. With “Nom Nom Nom Rank“, we rank the restaurants and determine your best choice based on predefined metrics such as weather, popularity and how busy the location is.
Note: Their domain was just registered, so the link may not work right away. Follow Nom Nom Nom Rank on Twitter
Fun Thing (Winner: Second Place)
By: Logan Aube
Using: Cadmus API
Description: Fun Thing is a Small Platformer that uses the Cadmus API to turn HackTO’s Twitter feed into a cool level of a game!
Note: After you click play you’ll probably need to click the screen again to get the controls working! Left, Right and Space to Jump. Catch the icons of your friends to invert the screen’s colours but also to gain points! If you stay on a tweet for too long it will start to fall.
wp-instapaywall (Winner: Third Place)
By: Mo Jangda
Using: Freshbooks API
Description: Mo has written up an awesome post about his project on his blog! In its simplest form, the plugin lets you paywall your blog posts and make money by charging readers for full access to them.
Fundy (Honourable Mention)
By: Andrew Louis and Libin Pan
Using: Yellow Pages API and Freshbooks API
Description: Running a political campaign and need an emergency of cash? Use Fundy to automatically invoice local businesses for campaign donations.
Jira (Honourable Mention)
By: Jason Cornell, Igor Frenkel, Ricardo Peters and Ashley Lewis
Using: PixMatch API and ISBNdb API
Description: Jira is an iPhone application that allows you to upload a photo of a book cover and using the PixMatch API, return the ISBN and book cover of the book. Then by using the ISBNdb API, it returns the book title, author, publisher, and stores with prices. You can then select one of the stores and go directly to the website for purchase.
Note: Visit this project using your iPhone — requires the Quickpic application
Cash $oup! WTF?
By: Peter Vernigorov and Khurram Virani
Using: OANDA/FxTrade API
Description: Cash $oup! WTF? uses the HTML5 canvas and the Processing.js framework to draw floating organisms in a Primordial soup where each organism represents a currency exchange rate. The organisms grow and shrink in real time to reflect real time foreign exchange rates pulled from OANDA’s FxTrade API.
Note: The demo points to the development server so the rates being used are not current. The github repo is here.
currency_bot
By: Anita Kuno and Johnny Tong
Using: OANDA/FxTrade API
Description: currency_bot is a twitter bot announcing the value of one Canadian dollar in other currencies.
Media Gorge
By: Simon South, Alexa Clark and Gerry Thorpe
Description: 4square for media – check in for books, movies, music, etc.
Multi-currency time tracker
By Brian Smith
Using: OANDA/FxTrade API and Freshbooks API
Description: Multi-currency time tracker is a tool which tracks time for billing in multiple currencies, then
submits it to Freshbooks.
Note: The Freshbooks functionality no longer works, but Brian will leave the OANDA stuff up as long as their API stays the same.
PICTURE-ADE
By: Eyal Katz
Using: PixMatch API
Description:
PICTURE-ADE is a card game with pictures instead of numbers. A basic version of solitaire:
- you get 3 cards
- a card is being “dealt”
- you have to “play” a card that is SIMILAR to the dealt card
***this is the point! only the pixmatch api can tell if picture is SIMILAR – aha! now there’s a challenge, can you be tell which is similar? the computer is the judge.
- click “flip” to deal a new card if you don’t have a match
- you only have 20 “flips” to get rid of your 3 cards.
- this is more challenging when drunk.
Note: this could be developed into an actual cool game.. any numeric card game can be more fun with pictures instead of numbers.
Trend-Blaster 3000
By Nick Hoffman and Sully Syed
Using: OANDA/FxTrade API
Description: Trend-Blaster 3000 plots a currency’s value over the course of a year on a graph. By zooming in on sections of the graph and clicking on data points, New York Times articles for that time period are listed below. Using this information, it is possible to draw conclusions regarding the fluctuations in the currency.
Tyke Tycoon
By: Matt Okura, Melina Stathopoulos and Martine Vong
Using: OANDA/FxTrade API, Yellw Pages API and Google Maps API
Description: Tyke Tycoon is a children’s game prototype for mobile touch screen devices. It lets kids track the money they find or receive (how much and where), shows them where the nearest bank is, and shows them how much their money is worth in various international currencies.
Note: The currency conversion has been removed from this project as it no longer connects to OANDA
World of TriviaCraft
By: Allen George, Brian Watling and Rhett Lunn
Using: Freebase API
Description: World of TriviaCraft is an online movie trivia game featuring thousands of movies powered by Freebase. Technology: node.js with express serverside, Javascript and jQuery client side
—
Thanks to all the folks who submitted project information for this post. Once again, if we are missing your project info, please let us know!
We’ll be posting photos soon as well, so if you have any of your own photos that you would like featured on the site do drop us a line or simply upload them to Flickr and tag them HackTO
We hope you enjoyed HackTO2, and keep on hackin’!
Stuff to know for HackTO2
HackTO2 is this Saturday the 25th, from 9am-6pm. To ensure things go swimmingly and that you are fully prepared for awesomeness, please note the following:
GETTING HERE
- HackTO2 will take place at Idee Inc, at 223 Queen Street East
- Idee is on the southwest corner of Queen and Sherbourne. Spot the silver door. Press the buzzer next to the “Idee” sign to be let in.
- There is some street parking in front of Idee on Queen street, and behind Idee on Britain street.
WHAT TO BRING
- Your Guestlist receipt (HackTO2 is sold out!)
- Your laptop
- Your mobile device if you are developing a mobile app
- Cables, chargers and connectors for any of the above
WHAT WE WILL PROVIDE
- APIs, API support
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Coffee, tea, juice, pop
- Snacks and beers at beer o’clock
- Wireless internet
- A large LCD display for presentations, with HDMI and VGA input (we recommend you bring your own connectors, but we will have some handy as well)
- Smiles!
SCHEDULE
9:00 – Breakfast and introductions
9:30 – API presentations (5 minutes per presentation). You will be timed.
10:15 – Open Planning (App ideas on whiteboard, teams formed)
10:30 – Hacking setup and start
Noon – Lunch
1:00 – Hacking
5:00 – Application presentation (5 minutes per presentation) and beer o’clock
5:30 – Judging and prizes
6:00 – Off to C’est What on Front street for celebrations!
FAQs
Q: Am I allowed to use third party APIs (APIs not provided via HackTO) for my application?
A: Yes. But your usage of the third party APIs needs to be in addition to the HackTO APIs. Also keep in mind that judging is partially based on utilization of the provided APIs, though, so their use should be prominent.
Q: What if I don’t have an idea for an application by Saturday?
A: No problem, there will likely be many people who could use an extra brain for their ideas. Ask around during breakfast or Open Planning.
Q: How large can the teams be? Can I work solo?
A: Teams can be as large or as small as you like. Solo is okay, too!
Planning your app? Here's some updated API info.
Hackers, here is all the API info you should need to prepare yourselves for Saturday. Make sure to say hi to your API reps!
Cadmus (Anomaly Innovations)
DESCRIPTION
Cadmus is a real-time service that manages your Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS streams. The API lets you sort your Twitter timeline by relevance. You can also see the entire conversation around a tweet, and any related tweets that have been made by your friends. Find top conversations from within your Twitter lists, and see trending topics specifically for lists and friends.
REP: Michael Liao
tech enthusiast, developer, athlete, sports fan, trying to leave my mark on the world…
DESCRIPTION
Freebase is an open, Creative Commons licensed repository of structured data containing information about 12 million real-world entities including people, places, films, books, events, business, and more. Use the API to access a graph database of about 400 million facts and connections between entities. Google just acquired Freebase so if you are not familiar with Freebase, this is your chance to become familiar before you start seeing this data goodness in your Google search results!
REP: Shawn Simister
Shawn Simister is a programmer, entrepreneur and open data enthusiast from Ottawa. He has been a member of the Freebase community since it began in 2007 and is part of the experts group which helps maintain the community. Shawn also runs his own consulting practice which provides web development expertise to local startups.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks supplies online billing services, allowing freelancers and small businesses manage their cashflow and get paid faster. The FreshBooks API allows 3rd party developers to expand and build on the FreshBooks platform. Access FreshBooks account data using HTTP and XML to create web and desktop applications that integrate with a FreshBooks account.
REP: Corey Reid
Corey writes about software development management, swordfighting and games on his website, and at FreshBooks, is expanding the hotshot development team to meet the challenges of the company’s rapid growth. He has pretty crazy ideas on what makes a great software team, mostly involving “Making Sure Developers Are Insanely Happy”.
fxTrade (OANDA)
fxTrade is an online currency trading platform that allows everyone to participate directly in the forex (foreign exchange) market. The fxTrade API lets you create trading robots that monitor the market and buy and sell currencies at high speed. In this multi-trillion dollar market microseconds count and only the smartest algorithms come out on top. This same API has been used at OANDA to create our iPhone, iPad and Android apps.
DOCUMENTATION (username: hackto password: tohack)
REP: Paul Robinson
Paul Robinson and his team are the architects behind the API. Paul is the team lead responsible for the Transaction System Development as well as the Mobile Development at OANDA. They are the creators of hte iPhone, Android and iPad versions of the trading platform.
PixMatch (Idée and data from Internet Archive)
PixMatch is an image matching engine that allows you to perform large scale image comparisons. Identify exact image matches and modifications of a query image. For HackTO, the PixMatch API will be providing access to the Internet Archive’s Open Library collection of book covers. Or if you prefer, you can use a “blank” version of PixMatch which allows you to use your own provided image database.
DOCUMENTATION
- PixMatch with OpenLibrary (available the day-of)
- PixMatch blank, regular (available the day-of)
- PixMatch blank, mobile (available the day-of)
IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLES
REP: Martine Vong
Programmer by day, gamer by night
YellowAPI (Yellow Pages Group)
Yellow Pages Group is Canada’s largest directory publisher. The API provides access to a large database of Canadian business content and allows direct streaming of local search content including video, photos, ad thumbs and more. Get geo-localized listings for map overlays and proximity search.
REP: Daniel Nephin
Daniel Nephin is a software developer for Yellow Pages Group.
Judges for HackTO2
What would a great contest be without great judges? Pfft: just half as great, that’s what.
We are therefore quite pleased to have three fine brains judging HackTO2, bringing us to full “great” status!
Hackers, meet the people you need to please.
Ali Asaria
Ali Asaria is the founder and CEO of Well.ca, Canada’s largest online health and beauty store. Ali participates in the startup scene in Waterloo and Toronto, is on the board of directors for Communitech, and blogs at aliasaria.ca
Pete Forde
Pete Forde is a founding partner of Unspace, a Toronto-based software development company. Unspace uses Ruby on Rails to build web and mobile applications for clients including The United Nations, TheScore Sports Network, TAXI and a long list of start-ups. Pete was curator of the RubyFringe and FutureRuby conferences, and currently hosts the long-running monthly Rails Pub Nite event. An avid traveler and occasional touring rock drummer, Pete is passionate about music and film photography. In grade five Pete wrote a program to control a robot so that he could impress a girl. Sadly, this approach failed.
Tom Purves
Thomas Purves is a Toronto based blogger, technologist and innovator. By day, Thomas helps global financial services brands plan for the digital future and navigate the murky waters of mobile commerce.
Prizes for HackTO2
Why compete at HackTO?
Sure, you could do it for the sense of personal accomplishment. You could do it for the socializing and camaraderie. You could even do it for the food.
But you know you want to do it for the GLORY and the PRIZES!
To the winners go the following spoils:
1st place: Android phone
Depending on your carrier or preference:
- Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant
- HTC Desire
- Another available Android phone of your choice
2nd place: Kindle 3G
The smaller, lighter, faster one with:
- Free 3G (!)
- Built-in Wi-fi
- Storage for 3,500 books
3rd place: Amazon gift certificate for $100
Buy your heart’s desire.
Honorable mentions: Crumpler gear
- Something neat from Crumpler
Curious about the criteria for judging? The judges will be looking for:
- Utilization of the API functionality (it doesn’t matter how many APIs you use)
- Usefullness of the application (for its intended purpose and audience)
- Creativity and ingenuity
- General effort involved
So keep those ideas flowing, and here’s to winning big!
Photo by Mick Roche
API app examples and ideas for HackTO2
Now that the API lineup for HackTO2 has been announced, you may be thinking: “Hot damn, what the heck should I build?”
Well, here to jump-start your brain are some example applications made using the same lovely APIs that will be available to you at HackTO2.
TweetAgora using Cadmus
TweetAgora is a Twitter app with all sorts of advanced features. They have implemented the Cadmus API in TweetAgora v2, which allows users to view their most relevant tweets using TweetAgora’s iPhone app. This implementation also allows users to view trending topics for their personal streams and lists.
Read more about the TweetAgora implementation
Get documentation for the Cadmus API
Tippify using Freebase
Tippify provides social recommendations for films, books and music. Using Freebase Suggest–which provides auto-completion based on Freebase topics–Tippify helps their users choose recommendations and displays related data and content from other sites.
Read more about this and several other Freebase implementations
Get documentation for the Freebase API
Poynt using Yellow Pages Group
Poynt is an all-in-one local search application for smartphones. Using YelowAPI from Yellow Pages Group, the app allows you to retreive information on businesses, retailers and events on an interactive map.
Read more about this and several other YPG implementations
Get documentation for the YPG API
And there you go: some great examples for three of the six fabulous APIs waiting for you at HackTO2. Hopefully that has got you thinking about application ideas!
Oh, and for you HackTO virgins: be sure to check out some of the apps that were created at the last HackTO.
API lineup for HackTO2
The HackTO percolations are imminent! Many of you may be wondering what the API lineup is going to look like for this round. Well wonder no more; we’ve got six fabuloso APIs here to dirty your hands and spark your imagination.
Each of the following APIs will be supported by a genuine, bona fide, electrified “rep” to answer any questions you may have.
Cadmus is a real-time service that manages your Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS streams. The API lets you sort your Twitter timeline by relevance. You can also see the entire conversation around a tweet, and any related tweets that have been made by your friends. Find top conversations from within your Twitter lists, and see trending topics specifically for lists and friends.
Get documentation for the Cadmus API
Freebase is an open, Creative Commons licensed repository of structured data containing information about 12 million real-world entities including people, places, films, books, events, business, and more. Use the API to access a graph database of about 400 million facts and connections between entities. Google just acquired Freebase so if you are not familiar with Freebase, this is your chance to become familiar before you start seeing this data goodness in your Google search results!
Get documentation for the Freebase API
FreshBooks supplies online billing services, allowing freelancers and small businesses manage their cashflow and get paid faster. The FreshBooks API allows 3rd party developers to expand and build on the FreshBooks platform. Access FreshBooks account data using HTTP and XML to create web and desktop applications that integrate with a FreshBooks account.
Get documentation for the FreshBooks API
OANDA provides Internet-based foreign exchange trading and currency information services. As one of the largest non-bank Futures Commission Merchants, it has access to one of the world’s largest historical, high frequency, filtered currency databases.
PixMatch (Idée and data from Internet Archive)
PixMatch is an image matching engine that allows you to perform large scale image comparisons. Identify exact image matches and modifications of a query image. For HackTO, the PixMatch API will be providing access to the Internet Archive’s Open Library collection of book covers.
Yellow Pages Group is Canada’s largest directory publisher. The API provides access to a large database of Canadian business content and allows direct streaming of local search content including video, photos, ad thumbs and more. Get geo-localized listings for map overlays and proximity search.
Get documentation for the YPG API
I hope that whets your appetite. Now eat your greens and start thinking about applications! In our next blog post I will point to a few ideas and implementations for the above APIs to get your creative juices flowing.
Wanted: APIs for HackTO!
With just a month to go, HackTO is quickly approaching (By the way, if you haven’t signed up yet already, get on that!).
I’m sure you’re all sitting on your hands right now, itching to get them dirty at HackTO, thinking: “Whatever will I do with myself in the meantime?!”
Well we need your help finding companies with interesting APIs for HackTO. What makes an API interesting? Last time we had APIs that could:
- Search local listings (Canpages)
- Manage and analyze revenue (FreshBooks)
- Match similar images (Idee)
- Add useful apps to any website (OPENApps)
- And rank blogs and RSS feeds (PostRank)
Some very cool apps were created out of these APIs, and we’d like to offer some similarly exciting APIs this time around!
So: If you are with–or know of–a technology company that you think should be involved, please get in touch!
Ideally, an eligible API for HackTO would be:
- Public (or made temporarily available to our hackers for at least a few weeks after HackTO ends)
- Well-documented
- Generally useful (and to creative folks, a lot of things could be considered generally useful!)
We would like to make this HackTO the best yet, so if you have any leads or ideas for APIs that you would like to see, please don’t hesitate to let us know!
Image by Daniel Dionne