FIWARE is a public-private partnership launched by the European Union in 2014 to promote the development of smart cities apps based on open standards and open source code. By providing tools and components in areas such as data management, Internet of Things interoperability, and information security, the initiative seeks to provide simple, standards-based interconnectivity between apps across any vertical.

The FIWARE Development team at Telefónica has recently built a connector for CartoDB. The python script parses data from a FIWARE “Context Broker” (a service which allows for easy publishing of/subscribing to frequently updated data). By leveraging CartoDB’s SQL API, the connector updates rows in a CartoDB table with the latest data from the context broker, keeping the map’s underlying data as fresh as possible.

Rent and real estate conditions are fascinating subjects for maps. While they may be the maps that haunt us when in moving-in/out mode, they are likewise the ones that help us mostly clearly comprehend the human, economic, and social landscape of our surroundings.

Read on to continue in our series on Map of the Week posts related to “making rent”, this installment—Montréal.

Real estate is an industry that relies heavily on data-driven insights and visualizations. Agencies, listing services, property departments all choose CartoDB to visualize their business and make insightful decisions.

Qlik Sense users no longer have to rely on just the classic way of visualizing important decisions. Now in addition to graphs, pie charts, and other visual analytics, Qlik Sense users can use CartoDB’s slick Torque animated maps as well as additional visualization renderings. CartoDB for Qlik enables the creation of data-driven maps to visualize location data within the Qlik Sense Dashboard, which is personalized to maximize analytics to get the most impact and insights from your data.

The City of Las Vegas goes by many names: Sin City, the City of Lights - but this month it will take a new name - Data Metropolis! A whole new world of opportunity exists in your data and for three days, over 150 sessions, with 4000 Splunk enthusiasts you can raise the stakes. There are no limits to what you can do with the massive streams of machine data generated by your business systems and technology infrastructure. Enhance your knowledge of data-driven products and apps with an ace up your sleeve, and solve your most important data challenges. We’re going to Vegas, baby!

The fall season provides a lot of fresh starts for many. The heat of summer and laxity subside as school semesters commence and vacations wind down. With these endings come new beginnings and the time for civic engagement has never been more rife.

About a month ago, we announced Insight, our first ever data and design competition in conjunction with Measure, a New York City exhibit by Storefront for Art and Architecture. With the competition close at the end of last month, we wanted to thank all of the teams who submitted projects and emphasize that we were truly blown away by the quality of maps and insight shared by our stellar community. With over 60 incredible submissions, our team spent days deeply exploring each project and deliberating in selecting the top 5 most outstanding projects to enter into our finalists round. CartoDB is proud to announce our Insight: A data and design competition finalists for 2015!

The ‘smarter city’ is all the rage, and while a buzzing megapolis may have the complexity and resources to deploy a mayoral ‘geek squad’ or install flocks of sensors, the average town has to fulfill its duties on a much tighter budget.

We’re all about tools that bring location intelligence to everyone, which is why a new product from our partner AppGeo has us excited. They just launched the next generation of MapGeo, a data management and visualization platform for local governments. They’ve rebuilt it from scratch using CartoDB, and, if we may say so, MapGeo 2.0 is fantastic.

If you’re interested learning more about what MapGeo can offer your town or city, we hope you’ll join our October 8 webinar.

Join CartoDB, from September 15 - 17, as we immerse ourselves in the historic city of Stuttgart, Germany at the INTERGEO Conference and Trade Fair. We will spend three days engrossed in geodesy, geoinformation, land management, and cartography. INTERGEO has special space in the hearts of map scientist and offers extraordinary insights on open source GEO.

We are excited to announce the close of $23 million in Series B financing to expand CartoDB’s mission, enabling anyone to map their world’s data and leverage the power of location. The funding is led by Accel Partners, with participation from Salesforce Ventures as well as our earlier investors, Earlybird and Kibo Ventures. We also warmly welcome Harry Nelis from Accel as a new board member.