There were some requests on the AIR Daily maillist for a quick&dirty how-to on using NPR’s new API. Your most common use will probably be embedding a single story into your web page or blog post.
Copy the above storyID at the end of the url, and paste it into the JavaScript code below where it sez “PasteStoryIDHere”; also paste in your NPR API Key at “PasteYourAPIKeyHere” (instructions below on how to get one):
Notice I’ve specified the fields=title,teaser,storyDate,show,audio. Those fields determine what’ll show on the page: you can remove some, or add others. The list of what’s possible is under the FIELDS tab of NPR’s Query Generator.
While there, check out the many other possibilities for interacting with NPR database of stories, audio, text, and photos. You can specify search terms, NPR shows, topics, and a host of other criteria for creating custom lists. And you can see how the lists will display. If there’s demand I’ll add another how-to sometime on using the Query Generator. (UPDATE: QG how-to added.)
Click the upper-left Register link to start your account. Or, if you subscribe to an NPR newsletter, you already have an account: click instead the upper-left Login link and enter your NPR subscription email and password.
Once in, click the Manage link in the upper-left. Copy it. (You can get it again anytime by returning to your account settings, and using the Open API top tab.)
NPR is already offering a collection of widgets made by themselves and others (using their new API), including this flash-y Reverbiage spinning-globe story-list:
NPR.org has released their API (application programming interface) allowing access to NPR’s huge stockpiles of stories and sounds from 1995 till now. Anyone can embed NPR story-lists on their own web-pages and blogs, along w/ all NPR’s audio player possibilities: Real, Windows Media, or NPR’s own pop-up player right from your own page — you can “Play Now” a single story or build a playlist. Try it, here’s a recent HV NPR story:
June 27, 2008 | NPR· Amy Jo is a single mother of two toddlers. Each day is a struggle to provide the life she promised her daughter two years ago, but she’s glad their father is out of the picture.
Notice you also get streaming mp3s (.m3u), something not yet even on NPR’s own story pages. And who knows what widget-ry bit-twisters might craft from NPR’s new embrace of open-source-ness (see next post).
Techies: the API outputs as either an HTML or JavaScript widget, or in several XML formats, including RSS, ATOM, and NPR’s own custom NPRML. For details on constructing API calls and getting an API key, start at the Inside NPR.org blog. And you’re gonna love their Query Generator.
Preventive Maintenance Monthly (now digitized at VCU libraries) was an Army pub started in 1951 and drawn by comic artist Will Eisner, with comically beautiful service babes asking accusing questions like “Who didn’t check out these parts before taking them off the equipment?” And offering vital SOPs like:
Musicians may soon be able to play instruments using just the power of the mind. Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London have developed technology to translate thoughts into musical notes.
Nuthin’ like a good gas crisis to spurn some excitement for energy conservation— the Aptera electric and hybrid vehicle, 300 miles-per-gallon, extended range models, “composite safety cage similar to Formula-1 cars,” exceeds 85 mph, 0-60 mph in under 10 seconds, “designed from the ground up as an electric vehicle;” that’s just some of its innovations.
Summize Conversational Search’s “mission is to discover the topics and attitudes expressed within online conversations. Our home page currently features realtime conversations on Twitter.”
For instance here’s “hearing voices” summized:
Summize sez they’ll soon add blogs, reviews, and other online chatter. Some particularly entrancing summizing is hapnin’ with the “love hate think believe feel wish” of twistori.
This video shows a “pack animal” robot designed to crawl up mountains, on ice, through snow, carrying 340 lbs. The way this “animal” adapts to terrain is unbelievable. Created ( by Boston Dynamics, an engineering company “Dedicated to the Science and Art of How Things Move.” If you have no interest in futuristic army technology or the replacement for Sherpas, then have a nice day; otherwise, brought to by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, here’s The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth, “Boston Dynamics Big Dog:”
To demonstrate our WY-centric station carriage, mentioned in post prev, our graphics team has prepared this map:
That’s right, there’s a new toy in town, Google Charts: online generation of graphs, charts, and data-driven maps. Thanks, Jon, for telling me about it and making me waste my morn — you know I can’t resist to trying new tech. Or as Jon graphically points out:
The Thermopolis transmitter of Wyoming Public Radio was off-air. To fix it they needed to get up past three feet of snowdrifts, over three inches of ice, and into 40-mph winds blowing snow sideways across a cloud-covered hilltop. A four-wheel drive wouldn’t make it; a rental Sno-Cat would have taken days to find; and snowmobile travel would have been dangerous with the weight and bulk of the gear and parts needing transport. So how did Chief Engineer Reid Fletcher and Program Director Roger Adams make their mid-winter ascent? Hint: “Giddyup.”
A trombone takes fire, ice, wood, and greased steel balls to become a musical instrument. Filmed at the S.E. Shires company, from Discovery’s Science Channel series, “How It’s Made – Trombones:”
The people who master music CDs have gone compression crazy, sez this Rolling Stone article “The Death of High Fidelity.” In this “loudness war,” fought for the ears of radio listeners, their sonic weapons maximize a constant volume by boosting the softer sections, clipping the peaks, and squishing the dynamics,. What’s left is a flatline of loud, like the soundwave to the right (of an Arctic Monkeys song).
A fairly chilling account of internet vulnerability that reads more like one of William Gibson‘s or Bruce Sterling‘s fictions.
The ramifications of an attack such as this are reasonably severe — and yet this is the first I’d seen or read any news on the subject, even considering the number of tech.-related publications I regularly peruse.
Is everyone else waking up to spams titled “USA Missle Strike: Iran War just have started” (sic) and such? The eems have malware attached, like “News.exe” and “Movie.exe.” Haven’t a clue what it does (on a Mac, doncha know), but ya gotta admit its email subject is a clever bit of social-engineering to get you to click. Though, even after all these years, “Nude Anna Kournikova pics” still works around here.
BTW, while I’m being divergent, have you heard a Texas Hold ‘Em hand: Ace-King (AK), aka, Big Slick, is now also aka, Anna Kournikova, for its initials but mainly cuz “it looks good, but hardly ever wins.”
This Iran/Missile/War/USA malware spam must be new. Not even on Snopes yet.
BBC Report: “
The people who master music CDs have gone compression crazy, sez this Rolling Stone article “
From September’s Wired: