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Brazil Using Smartphones For Planning the Future
shafiur writes "Brazil has bought 150,000 LG smartphones and has embarked on the world's first fully digital national census. Can they succeed when the US recently failed to go digital? The Brazilians say that the digital census has several advantages over paper and pen methods. They say that the data is more accurate since GPS data will pinpoint the exact location of a household. The GPS data is cross-referenced with satellite images to ensure that responses are correctly geo-tagged. The recently begun census will underpin future publicy-making decisions."
The US census did use GPS to pinpoint the exact locations of households. So Brazil can't do that much better....
Do you mean "policy"?
it seems an improvement to use this to underpin decisions for making publicy.
Strictly speaking, Brazil is not the first nation to do this.
The tiny Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu recently completed their 2010 census using smart phones. They mapped every single household across over 80 inhabited islands using GPS and are in the process of putting everything into a GIS-ready database.
The challenge, of course, was several orders of magnitude smaller, but as a proof of concept, it was compelling. To be able to use electronic data gathering ina Least Developed Country with no mobile phone service to 20% of the country is pretty remarkable. This is the first time in its history that Vanuatu has had reliable, complete demographic data.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Also, it's a wonderful way for the government to show the poverty-stricken people (I realize that term doesn't apply to everyone) how "awesome" western culture is, and why they should start the "culturization" process we've been famed for in the past couple centuries!
Care to bet how long before Brazil has to start cleaning up their pollution clouds?
Hate to break this to you, but Brazil is "Western"
Having the answers pinpointed by GPS doesn't seem too good. A census contains lots of data that's better kept to a somewhat generic location.
The claim that the US process cost 10x as much I imagine has more to do with the fact that the Census is a labor intensive process. So intensive that it altered our unemployment rates briefly.
So yes the cost per person was about 10x higher in the US but the cost per hour for a census employee was probably considerably higher as well.
The Brazilian Census cost about $1B USD. Of that only $75M was for their hardware. So in neither scenario was hardware cost significant. I doubt we spent $13B more than the Brazilians on developing custom hardware that we didn't use--so it's bad journalism and misleading reporting to suggest in the same sentence that our solution to develop custom hardware was an example of US waste.
Furthermore if we have 30% more people in the US that means we would need 320,000 census devices. That's not a bad run of a product and I would say safely warrants custom hardware. Especially if you could create a far less expensive device. slow RISC Processor + Basic software + Broad-com chip w/ AGPS should be less than $100 to make. This is the census we're talking about. 7 questions. You don't need anything more than a TI-83, GPS and an 3G antenna to make that an effective product. I would be surprised if you couldn't make something which uses less than $20 in wholesale components.
Also, Brazil is a relatively wealthy country.
But well-designed stratified-sampling surveys produce better statistics at lower cost. Of course, governments are often after more than mere statistics...
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Obviously you've never been to South America. Brazil is a relatively wealthy country, but it's a country of Haves and Have Nots. Poverty in the US is nothing compared to poverty there.
If the US had waited a few years until GPS enabled phones were available they might have had more success. The contract to supply the devices was started way back in 2002. Maybe next time...
I would like to see a constitutional amendment based on sound conservative fiscal policy.
The conservatives don't have a sound fiscal policy. Tax wealthy and corporations less. Spend more...on lining the pockets of the wealthy and corporations more.
(Yes, I know what you meant, but I felt like going this way!)
Did you just try to Godwin this thread? If so, it was buried in one of the more convoluted, confused paragraphs I've seen in a long while. Perhaps I just misunderestimated you, but I really think you should put the keyboard down and go outside for a spell.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland in this context) have all abolished the manual census counting years ago. In Sweden, the last census survey was made in 1990. Since then, an automatic system has been in place to which you report whenever you move, get married, have kids etc (well, I think the hospital is reporting children). Formally, this has to be made on paper so it is technically not a fully digital system. However, since the introduction of E-ID's a few years back, it has been possible to do this online, beating Brazil with at least 4 years.
'Conversative' has lost it's meaning an US politics and has become another name for a political party. The conversatives aren't conservative.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
And enumeration is a lot less easy to game. Imagine the political games currently played at redistricting time being played with the census itself.
I think it's a troll, but it's so bizarre it's hard to tell.
Dude, that was awesome! I want some of that stuff you're smoking
Dude, that was awesome! I want some of that stuff you're smoking
I don't. Whatever it it is, it's obviously caused severe brain damage. Or perhaps he was dropped on his head at birth, hard to tell.
That bit about sending FEMA to kill us was precious. If anything, FEMA will just ignore us to death.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
'Conversative' has lost it's meaning an US politics and has become another name for a political party. The conversatives aren't conservative.
Progressives sure as shit aren't progressive.
'Conversative' has lost it's meaning an US politics
I'm not sure "conversative" really ever had much meaning in U.S. politics. On Slashdot, maybe.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Facts about Brazil:
Brazil is energy self-sufficient! It still exports some oil it cannot refine, and imports some oil it can refine, but, overall, it is energy independent.
Brazil has real banking laws. The world-wide economic downturn caused by corruption in the U.S. financial system lasted only a few months in Brazil.
Brazil only recently passed laws that everyone must be educated through high school. There are a lot of adults in Brazil who, sadly, have little education. Little education usually means they will be poor all their lives.
Compared to the United States, Brazil has poor libraries. Andrew Carnegie made it fashionable for U.S. cities and towns to have good libraries. Because of limited libraries, it is difficult for someone in Brazil to educate himself or herself.
The best book in English about Brazil and the history of Brazilian politics is The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was president of Brazil for two consecutive terms, from January 1995 to December 2002.
Brazilians feel a lot of social pressure. They often compare themselves with other people in an unhealthy way. The culture of individuality in the U.S. tends to cause people in the U.S. to just be themselves, which is healthier.
However, people in the U.S. seem relatively unhappy. Brazilians in general seem much happier with life.
Judging from numerous shocking news stories about the ease of modifying the results, the electronic voting booths in the U.S. are corrupt. Brazilian electronic voting seems accurate.
It can't be accurate, with a 72% participation rate (http://www.census.gov/). Existing data already collected by the govt and various public and private agencies such as licensing, income and real estate taxes can provide far more accurate data with minimal cost. The notion that we still have to manually count people is ludicrous. The assumption that the govt doesn't already have details on anyone in this country who has ever filed a piece of paper with the state is bogus. It's just a matter of sharing that info with the census bureau. Simply require the states to share information with the govt. As a side benefit, telling the IRS who is in prison for example, might cut down on those fraudulent refund claims.
I would like to see a constitutional amendment based on sound conservative fiscal policy.
The conservatives don't have a sound fiscal policy. Tax wealthy and corporations less. Spend more...on lining the pockets of the wealthy and corporations more.
(Yes, I know what you meant, but I felt like going this way!)
Compared to who?
0bama/Pelosi/Reid's "tax everyone, spend like a drunken sailor" epic failure?
Do you realize the bitch slapping the Democrats are about to get this year?
It'll be another 20+ years before another leftist Dem wins the Presidency. I guess every generation has to experience the failure and lies of leftist policies for themselves.
0bama is another Jimmy Carter. Dolts who called Bush II the "worst President ever" seem to utter forget Carter - and his protege in utter fail: 0bama.
Some strange birther-blather there. So how was Washington DC this weekend? Did Glenn smile upon you?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
The Koch brothers are getting their money's worth out of the troll this season.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I hate to break it to you but there is no such agreement.
The exact scope of the Western world is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural, economic, spiritual or political criteria are employed.
From a cultural point of view Brazil could very well belong to the West, however that is not what is being challenged here [in my opinion].
The obvious cultural, economic and political differences between Brazil and what is known today as described by the term "the West" (Western Europe, North America, Israel, Australia and New Zealand) are clear. Corruption is endemic, the justice system incapable, crime rates sky high, racial discrimination heavy, wealth distribution skewed.
It would perhaps be more pertinent to discuss this in light of Brazil's present and future economic situation.
As of today Brazil is not a developed country according to the IMF, OECD or the UN.
It is perhaps most clear when considering the unequal nature of Brazilian society and Brazil's ranking according to the Human Development index. Brazil is ranked far below the average OECD country (Figure #1).
I think the report speaks for itself: "By looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities the HDI provides a much more complete picture of a country's development than other indicators, such as GDP per capita."
It is not nice when the government only uses the data it collects for "spin". Hopefully they are also able to use it for policy-making.... ;)
Meus subcriptio est nocens Latin quoniam bardus populus reputo is sanus callidus
AC because I'm a long-time lurker and rarely a poster. I was a 2010 Census Enumerator (door-knocker for the people who didn't send in their forms) and worked with people who had been responsible for locating the households originally. They all had handheld GPS devices and address lists, my crew leader wasn't technical enough to know/remember what imagery or databases they were using to start with but once they found a location they would press a button on the GPS device and locate it precisely on their maps. Generally this was done at the mailbox, where available, or where the driveway turned off from public roads. The maps we got as enumerators were all based on this field-collected GPS data (after a couple months to sort it, clean it, and generate area maps) and showed the local roads from the generic imagery--this wasn't always up to date, especially for new construction and new subdivisions, suggesting the road data was a couple years old at best, and then the specific GPS dots where the households had been located were the ones we used as location references to drive out to.
I was doing work in the Pacific Northwest (small town near enough to Vancouver, WA) in both urban and rural areas and I don't think we'll be going digital for 2020. Even in a safe small-town / rural atmosphere there were enough skeevy folks and enough paranoid/outright distrustful/completely hostile people that I can't imagine going out there with a government badge, a government bag, and a government tablet would be anything more than a great way to get mugged or killed...especially in some of this fine country's city centers / regions.
Paper and #2 pencils are cheap and more or less valueless. Sure, even attempting to intimidate us was a Federal felony, but odds are the guy shouting at you doesn't know that, and from the perspective of a city boy out traipsing around meth-lab-riddled farmlands, the guy with the gun is ALWAYS right until you can get back to your car and make a few phone calls. Sure, even if we see your back yard full of weed plants, we don't report it, we don't care, we're sworn to secrecy for life about any information we collect, but odds are the stoners won't care.
Not to mention they'd have to be pretty damn rugged for field use. Rain, snow, freezing, mud, being dropped (you know it'll happen), batteries abused for charge cycles, thrown around, thrown into bags with sharp edges and rough fabric, you'd practically need a toughbook-type handheld GPS unit repurposed to run something off a custom ASIC for your forms, plus you've got issues with security for information transmission (Census information stays confidential & need-to-know for 70 years! The Commerce Bureau doesn't even tell the other branches of government this stuff unless they're appropriately classified and have a valid need to know.) and storage....it would be a gigantic nightmare and I don't see it happening any time soon, but that's just one enumerator's view.
Did I hurt your feelings? I'm only trying to be objective here, I don't have any feelings for or against Brazil. I believe it will become a fully developed country within a few decades.
Israel is clearly a developed nation in every aspect of the word. A structured society, ruled by law, organized and effective, high income status, high GDP levels, high levels of education and research all speak in favor of this status.
I assume you object because of the nature of the conflict with/over Palestine? That fact does not detract from the fact that Israelis enjoy a higher quality of life [on average] than say Brazilians. Please, remember I'm not referring to the top echelons of either society.
Freedom House's American origins not withstanding it still produces solid reports, I doubt you can find factual faults with that report?
At least I provided sources and arguments for my claims, you just dismissed the source without providing any counterarguments.
You also seem to have skipped criticizing all the other international sources I named from the OECD to the UN? Do you at least approve of them?
I did my homework, you on the other hand have nothing but hot air.
Sources
How about an official UN report from the High Commissioner for Human Rights on your country and crime, corruption and violence?
How about the UNESCO's official page for Brazil:
"Brazil has been historically marked by social, economic and cultural inequalities. Both society and government are increasingly aware of the need for changing that scenario by creating mechanisms of social participation and control, programmes, projects, and actions that represent a movement towards positive changes."
"Although it has a large number of poor people Brazil is not a poor country, but still has to overcome social injustice and inequality. The social injustices are are reflected in a medium rank in the Human Development Index (HDI), which means that difficulties are still to be overcome in education, health, income distribution and employment conditions."
How about a report from Brazil itself (Ministério da Educação)?
I quote:" In spite of these undeniable advances, Brazil still needs to make great improvements in
these indicators. In terms of HDI in the Latin America and Caribbean region, Argentina,
Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Cuba and Mexico all have higher scores than Brazil."
"In spite of Brazil having the eighth largest economy in the world, the extreme inequality in
income which still typifies the country means that problems of social exclusion running
alongside economic growth continue to exist."
"These data show that, in spite of the progress made, the defects in the Brazilian school
system are still producing large numbers of people with insufficient levels of education,"
"The situation of socio-economic exclusion and insufficient provision of basic education are
also reflected in the opportunities for lifelong learning."
Nationmaster further provides details and sources on the crime rates in Brazil:
http://www.nationmaster.com/country/br-brazil/cri-crime
And so on...
While spending sunday afternoon with beers and old movies, someone knocked on my door and said it was the census and all. Since they had "booked" the visit earlier I knew it was them. (Yes, I'm in Brazil)
As soon as I opened the door I noticed the blue & very rugged "smartphone" (I would rather call a PDA) and the lady was really quick on making all the questions and even collecting my signature. (While singing into the touchscreen I could see that the thingy is pretty well designed and simple.
I believe it took me less than 5 minutes to answer everything (even though it took me some 2 to remember which year my mother was born!), in a nutshell: I believe this "digital" census can really be a good thing!
We already took care of our own pollution clouds in the 80's and 90's, thank you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubat%C3%A3o
Publicy? That's pretty cute. Public + policy = publicy
It's nice that you're proud of your country, but let's not confuse pride with the facts.
Japan is the most expensive country to live in and has been for some time. South Korea is next and also has been for sometime.
Secondly, I call BS on your "cost" analysis. While it is almost certainly true Norwegians, on average, pay less, have better coverage, and less uncovered in the field of health care, the true cost can only be derived by an in depth analysis for what they pay and pay into the system, and what part the government foots. I think, you'll find it costs more in any socialized medicine European country than in the US. But let's be fair, US coverage sucks, doctors and pharmaceuticals are greedy, and if you include all the legal kickbacks Pharms get from Congress, you may be right on it. I haven't analyzed it, mainly, because I know knowing will probably just make me sick.
Lastly, please don't lump all Usians, in one category. Yes, there are a lot of old, prejudiced, f***ers running the country, that doesn't mean that all US citizens have old fashioned ideas of civil liberties. A significant portion of the people support homosexual marriage. On top of which 21 political states of 51 in Europe have some recognition of same sex couples, as opposed to 16 US states have done so. There are only 7 European states recognizing same sex marriage, versus 6 for the US. I'm sorry, I have to call BS on this one also. Europe is a bit ahead, but not significantly.
Furthermore, for all your Nannying, that is so wonderful, it seems you've given up lots of freedoms to obtain that. You may have complete trust in the benign nature of your leaders, but most of us Americans still live by the knowledge of why we threw our European leaders out. Yeah, all those kings and queens, and Religious leaders were so benign weren't they? After all, no one really expects the Spanish Inquisition. I'm with Screwmaster on this one. If things get bad enough in this country, I feel comforted that I can pack a few things in my sack, pick up my guns and ammo and go hike into the mountains where I can't be found. I'm almost there now.
If the US had waited a few years until GPS enabled phones were available they might have had more success.
If the US had limited itself to just counting the people (as authorized and mandated by the Constitution) instead of collecting all manner of non-relevant information it could probably have conducted the census with a lot less manpower and paperwork. Heck, it'd be a lot easier to build an electronic device to conduct that census than to build one to conduct the information harvesting exercise that currently masquerades as a census.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Before someone jumps in and claims that the federal government can ask any questions they want, in the constitution it says that the count may be undertaken in "such manner as they shall by Law direct." That means that if they want to use pencil and paper, a web site, or handhelds, any method that they choose in Congress is OK. It doesn't say that the actual census can be anything they want. This means that just about every question other than "how many people" is unconstitutional. Yes, this even includes the claim that even in 1790 they asked for "race". They actually asked for "white" and "other"; regardless, it was wrong even then. They also asked for the number of slaves, but that we pretty much required due to the 3/5 representation clause.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
While I think this dilution of meaning has been a little less in this case, I would generally agree with you. Our politics are poisoned by the two party system. It's nearly impossible to actually have a reasoned discourse on anything anymore.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
No, you did not.