Open the Room Project helps journalists, citizens and towns broadcast on Facebook Live

This week we launch the Open the Room Project, which provides community journalists, citizen activists and town administrators with step-by-step directions to build a scalable, affordable system for streaming public meetings, events and sporting contests. The project was inspired by citizen activists who are streaming town council meetings via smartphones to Facebook Live. Our work … Continued

RJI Fellow expands work on mobile news app for smaller news organizations

Push notifications from The New York Times, the Guardian, BuzzFeed and The Washington Post alert us every day to scandal, horror, scientific achievement and grief. However, this capability lies mainly in the realm of large news organizations. Without a 24-hour news desk, smaller news outlets — especially weeklies and investigative centers — struggle to remind users … Continued

FL#200: Experimenting with interactive VR at Crossover

A group of filmmakers at Crossover is pushing the boundaries of immersive documentary storytelling by incorporating technologies like facial recognition into a virtual reality experience. Mark Atkin, a director of Crossover, tells us about the projects and explains how this kind of work might change viewers’ minds and behaviors. Reporting by Lindsey Miller, Rachel Wise … Continued

FL#199: Language recognition via Speechmatics

A British company called Speechmatics is working to build more accurate technology to turn spoken words into text across a wide range of different languages. We explore how the system might help journalists in the future. Reporting by Lily Oppenheimer, Rachel Wise and Jessica King. Additional information A key aspect of the technology is that … Continued

California trip makes us a stronger team

If you’ve watched the reaction video taken at the RJI Tech Showcase in late April, you probably already know just how shocked we were to win the app competition. We didn’t even all know each other before starting the competition, so getting to this point was pretty surreal for us. We had no idea what … Continued

FL#197: Following the crowd with Populace

The startup Populace uses data from social media and other sources to display crowd densities at various locations across urban areas. As a result, the system could make it possible for journalists to find out automatically whenever an unusually large crowd gathers in a public place. We find out how it works from founder and … Continued

FL#196: Automation at The Washington Post

Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at The Washington Post, says computer automation could increase a newsroom’s capabilities in three important ways: analyzing vast amounts of data, putting information into digestible forms, and tailoring the end result for each individual user. We dive into the details and find out how the Post has experimented already. … Continued