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."

Comments

*poop*

[Anonymous Coward]

*poop* *poop* *fart* *queef*

Side benefits!

[Jstlook]

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?

Re:US did do GPS

[Smallpond]

"The GPS data is cross-referenced with satellite images to ensure that responses are correctly geotagged"

but the US didn't check that all of the followup forms weren't filled out in the corner bar by the temp workers.

In The US Enumeration Is Constitutionally Mandated

[John Hasler]

But well-designed stratified-sampling surveys produce better statistics at lower cost. Of course, governments are often after more than mere statistics...

There was no technical issue

[fermion]

In the US there is not technical issue with going digital and applying twent first technology to the census. The use applied twentieth century technology in 1890 for the census. The issue is constitutional. We are supposed to enumerate. Of course constitutionality does not count for other things. For instance Orin Hatch wanted to amend the constitution to allow members of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, our enemy in WWI,and presumably random citizens of Kenya, to be president. Currently many want to deny citizenship to children based on their parent heritage. I wonder why.

I would like to see a constitutional amendment based on sound conservative fiscal policy. Set the budget of the census office to 2000 levels. Require they give up an enumberation for modern scientific and statistics based estimation. Publicly identify the enumerators as enemies of the US, after all they just want to increase the taxes on the average person by continuing ineffecient big and intrusive government. Why does government need to know all these details about us. Google can count users without any identifiable information, so why can't the government. The senators who want enumeration simply want to know where their enemies live so when the Tea Party revolution in in full force, then can send FEMA to kill us.

Chip em

[paimin]

Why not just chip everyone and be done with it?

Facts of the matter

[andersh]

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...