Marine data and RSS = Safer Boating
As a former naval officer, I really understand the value of marine-related data provided by the Coast Guard, NOAA, the National Weather Service, and even the boating community. As an innovator for Sprint, I see even more how that data could be better and more easily used by anyone using the US waterways- if it was available in an additional format key to information distribution on the Internet- RSS.
Any radiofax, navtex, even parts of the weekly notice to mariners could be delivered with RSS and also filtered by geographic region so the user only gets what they need. Something like the marine text forecasts is also perfect (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/marinewxi.htm). RSS plus geo-tagging makes for a very powerful combination.
I've already prepared a simple demo of how the RSS data feed from the National Data Buoy Center can be used. A much more powerful tool could be created by aggregating more data sources, if a standard format (RSS) was chosen for delivery to augment the current methods. RSS does not preclude what is done today, it just makes it better.
Please try out http://pipes.yahoo.com/erich/ndbc to see what the buoy data looks like overlaid on a map and imagine how adding the local marine weather reports, any nearby webcams, navtex, notice to mariners, etc. Just enter your starting and ending points and what a nautical trip planning aid you would have!
Boating safety would be improved, too, which might just save a life.
