Weekly: Android Jelly Bean Update, DC Events

We've got new code and plans to meet some of you in DC. Here's the weekly wrap from code to community to lost in translation.

New Android Update (Jelly Bean)

Android users: time to Play! Simply download the latest version from the Google Play Store. I'm in the Nexus way these days after happily firing my iphone in lieu of more maps, storage and open source. So, it gives me great joy to announce that Henry has a new release for Android. What's changed in version 3.02 Features:

Added Android-16 as a target. So now Jelly Bean devices can install this app.

Changed the background color for filter by text to red and changed text color to white.

Improved white-labeling experience by add more options for customization.

Bug:Fix lat/lon reverse issue. See #69.

Thank you, Android users

Thanks to Kirk Morris of the Standby Task Force, SFBoy and BlueLion99 for their testing and contributions.

Ushahidi Developer Community Call

We had a great discussion about Ushahidi deployments and some features that folks are hacking on. Tune into the audio recording.

Ushahidi platform, version 2.6

Our development team is working to crush a number of bugs for our next release. This includes addressing some issues with custom forms, CSV upload/downloads and the layers. See more details on the bugs and features tied to this milestone on github. (Sitati Kituyi, Angela Odour, and Mark Ekisa holding a Crowdmap infographic at today's Nairobi meet-up.)

Upcoming Events: Casual to Workshops to hacking

Autumn is packed with casual meet-ups and hackathons. We hope you will join us at some of these upcoming events: Ushahidi Washington DC meetup - October 9, 2012 Registration and applications for Ignite talks are open until October 1st for the the International Conference of Crisis Mappers. We're excited that members of our global community will be attending. (Washington DC, October 11 - 14, 2012) Ushahidi will host a workshop session at the International Anti-Corruption Conference, (Brazil November 7 - 10, 2012.) Corruption Mappers have been featured deployments of the week and are leading the charge to amplify issues around the globe. With this comes many topics around verification and security. We expect to host a great talk with some community members and new friends from Transparency International. Webmakers, hackers, journalists and more will be at the Mozilla Festival (London UK November 9 - 11, 2012)

In the Community

Deployment of the Week:

Lenasia Crime Alert is a citizen-mapping project from South Africa. Their "about" page includes an important notice that every crime and corruption mapper should include: Lenasia Crime Alert is operated by a team of volunteers. Lenasia Crime Alert is not an emergency service and cannot provide assistance in the event of an emergency. We are not crime experts, security officials, or a crime-fighting organisation. We can only monitor and update this site or our related information channels (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) as our time and resources permit. We encourage you to always consult the local police, security organizations, and crime-fighting forces to obtain the most accurate and up to date crime-related information.

Lost in Translation

Thanks to the amazing Korean Community efforts Ushahidi software is now translated into Korean. (Android, SMSSync and Platform) Check out their blog post about the contributions. We are hoping to increase our Bosnian translations. If you can help, please see the how to documents and our translation platform.

Planning your deployment

Working with digital communities is new for many organizations. The Digital Humanitarian Network has created this "Guidance for Collaboration with Volunteer and Technical Communities." Happy Reading, then implementing these suggestions in your work.

Photos from the Ushahidi Toronto Meetup

OpenStreetmap, MedicMobile, Standby Task Force and Soutkel members joined last week's Toronto Meetup. We were honoured to feature a number of local community projects using Ushahidi including WaterVoices, Great Lakes Commons and Democracity. It takes many hands and mighty planning to make a successful deployment. (Paul Baines of Great Lakes Commons) ***** I may have to buy extra battery power for all the geocaching and OSM apps I downloaded. Which apps do you use?