"ReRoute.it is a mobile application that helps people make informed transportation chioces. The app does so by turning the regular transit app on its head — and forces us to consider the consequences before we make our decision. ReRoute.it lets you compare every option with regard to time, cost, health, and environmental impact. Is a bike as fast as the bus but a quarter the cost? Info like that helps people understand transportation choices as something that impacts us all in a variety of ways."

"The Code for America program is not a typical software development contract. Through our fellowship, we recruit the top talent from the tech industry to give a year building civic software that will help cities cut costs, work smarter, and engage more with their citizens. Our program is structured to not only create immediate impact with our projects, but also catalyze long-term, sustainable change for both our cities and our fellows."

examples from making things see book

"This will allow us to share simple coding plans, hacks and other bits
and pieces that will make it easier for people to find resources for
their kids and teachers for their lessons."

"The magical barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone to launch an offline-to-online experience are often criticized for their black and white checkerbox appearance. Those who doubt that QR codes will go mainstream are quick to point out that the look of QR codes will deter marketers and advertisers from using them."

In this article, I will take you through the Dashcode tool provided by Apple (part of the iPhone SDK; hence you need to download it first) to build compelling Web applications for the iPhone.

CurrentCost (http://www.currentcost.com) monitors allow you to monitor your home electricity usage.
You can connect a serial cable to them to get the data out of them in an XML format.
This project contains Perl, Python, C# and Java code that will parse the data for you.