"You can access NDFD elements via file transfer protocol (ftp), http, eXtensible Markup Language (XML), or web browser. Links to the data, supporting information and software are listed below:…"

"So it seems the specific words in a journal policy that requires data archiving doesn’t matter much, though policies that include a general statement about data sharing and request the sharing of other datatypes have higher rates of data archiving.  The highest-impact journals that require data archiving have slightly higher archiving rates than those with impact factors between 4 and 7.  Mentioning exceptions in a journal policy may be associated with increased rates of archiving.  Core clinical journals tend toward high rates of data archiving (likely overlap with the high impact factor journals).

Disheartening to see again that studies about cancer are least likely to publicly archive data, even when required.  Some disciplinary trends:  studies on bacteria more likely to follow journal mandates.  Perhaps related:  studies that archived other types of data were more likely to also archive gene expression microarray data."

"Political FORCE offers a robust data analysis platform for campaigns, and is offering full access to its file of 182 million registered voters as a free service to all NationBuilder subscribers, in compliance with applicable laws limiting access to authorized entities for political purposes. Starting immediately, candidates can sign up for NationBuilder with full, free access to their voter data at NationBuilder.com."

Going back in history, until February 2009 ATOC licensed train departure information under commercial terms to a very small number of organisations, mostly within the rail industry. Kizoom published the only smartphone app at that time, the free MyRailLite for iPhone. Then a dispute arose between ATOC and Kizoom, and ATOC withdrew Kizoom’s licence to use the train departure information. Kizoom complained to the ORR, who conducted an investigation (PDF) into whether ATOC had abused a dominant position under competition law. ORR decided that ATOC did have a dominant position in the supply of train departure information, but they “found no evidence that ATOC’s conduct in granting access to Darwin had prevented a new product from coming to market or hampered the emergence of new technology” in November 2009. When the free MyRailLite from Kizoom was taken off the market, it was immediately replaced by a £5 iPhone app from Agant which was marketed under the National Rail Enquiries brand.

"Google and the USPTO have entered into an agreement to make the following USPTO products available to the public at no charge:

Patents (grants, applications, assignments, classification information, and maintenance fee events)
Trademarks (grants, applications, assignments, and TTAB proceedings)

All data originated from the USPTO. Google is hosting this data unchanged, except for repackaging into zip files."

"The slower traders began issuing buy orders. But rather than being shown to all potential sellers at the same time, some of those orders were most likely routed to a collection of high-frequency traders for just 30 milliseconds — 0.03 seconds — in what are known as flash orders. While markets are supposed to ensure transparency by showing orders to everyone simultaneously, a loophole in regulations allows marketplaces like Nasdaq to show traders some orders ahead of everyone else in exchange for a fee."

"We asked the city of Ann Arbor for all the electronic deliverables from Davey. And we provide the following data with a caveat: On Monday evening, city staff stressed that they were still doing some quality control work on the initial data set – so the data provided to The Chronicle is a snapshot of the city’s trees as assessed by the Davey Resource Group. The city’s inventory will presumably be maintained as a frequently updated data set that changes as trees are pruned, removed, or planted."

" The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides information to the public and to policy-makers concerning the current use and flow of minerals and materials in the United States economy. The USGS collects, analyzes, and disseminates minerals information on most nonfuel mineral commodities.

This USGS digital database is an online compilation of historical U.S. statistics on mineral and material commodities. The database contains information on approximately 90 mineral commodities, including production, imports, exports, and stocks; reported and apparent consumption; and unit value (the real and nominal price in U.S. dollars of a metric ton of apparent consumption). For many of the commodities, data are reported as far back as 1900. Each commodity file includes a document that describes of the units of measure, defines terms, and lists USGS contacts for additional information."

"We saw this sort of "favored garbage" all the time in the 90s. As a consequence Regulation FD, for "fair disclosure", was passed. It mandates that you cannot issue information that is material to your stock price to only a few select people - you have to give it to everyone at the same time, and the most common way you do this is to request a halt on your stock from the NYSE, issue the press release, then have the NYSE lift the halt.

This way nobody can get either long or short in front of your announcement and nobody gets to profit unfairly (or get screwed unfairly) as a consequence of whatever it is you need to announce."

"Two months ago, we wrote the article “Colocation and the Financial Industry” to summarize the growing demand for outsourced colocation services, especially from the Electronic Trading Community.

It may now be worth a little follow up, not because the landscape described has really changed, but to update our readers with a few events that have happened in the meantime."

"There are many sources to find out something about everything. Until now, there’s been no good place for you to find out everything about something.
The infochimps.org community is assembling and interconnecting the world's best repository for raw data -- a sort of giant free allmanac, with tables on everything you can put in a table. Built by data nerds, used by data nerds, it's a central source for the information you need to power the projects the world needs. (learn more: help|faq)"

Excellent visualizations of legal and government datasets, with analytical discussion

"The best thing about raw data is that almost everyone knows how it works. This means that as far as the data (re)user is concerned, the datasets are text files (or perhaps a close variant) that they can download, open in some default application, and get some immediate use out of it."

"Welcome to HackingCongress! This site is just starting up as of March 14, 2009 --- the goal is to be a hub, or at least a links page, for the developer community surrounding the intersection of civics and technology especially (but not exclusively) as it relates to the U.S. Congress."