Universal Translator or Visual Directory

A Flickr user created a cool Flickr hack that will enable you to search for a word and get photos representing that word come up in a mobile browser friendly way.

The obvious use is helping to communicate with someone, whose language you don't speak: "Ein dieses foto, bitte". The results, however, can be somewhat unexpected at times.

The same effect can be achieved with Google's Mobile image search feature, of course.

Both are great examples of what sort of innovative ideas API access to public data unleashes. At the same time one of our fine senators is trying to keep public data out of the public hands at the behest of his handlers (AccuWeather from Pennsylvania). The mind boggles.

-TPP