Since the launch of the first smartphone, just 20 years ago, the number of smartphones has increased extremely fast. Already in the year 2013 alone, more than one billion smartphones were sold. Smartphones allow people to be online where ever and whenever they want. The increased demand to have internet available at any location has resulted in an increased demand for Wi-Fi spots as well. Now it is a requirement for hotels to have Wi-Fi, whereas before Wi-Fi was an additional feature for the more luxury hotels. The spread of Wi-Fi expands with now restaurants, gas stations and even busses

In total there are currently 597,090 data sets on the European Data Portal. To find your way in this tremendous amount of data, there are 13 different data domains in which the data sets are divided. As explained in a previous Featured data article, approximately 70% of the data sets are mapped to the data domains. When exploring the domains more closely, one can wonder whether data domains with the most data sets published in for example Greece, are also the same in for example Finland? To investigate this question, the proportion of data sets per domain is calculated per country and compared

Berlin and London belong to the most dynamic cities in Europe. Both are capitals of two big European economies and both attract the most active, innovative people and companies. Despite these similarities the cities have a different status in their countries; London is a super-city, which is driving the whole British economy while Berlin has high political and cultural status, but does not belong to the richest cities in Germany. Unemployment trends in Germany, UK and EU This difference between cities can also be seen when the unemployment trends for both countries and cities are compared. On

The bigger economies of the world are increasingly driven by the analysis of great amounts of data. However, data is not instantly valuable, the value resides in its (re-)use. Read more about the benefits of Open Data. Governments acknowledge this and have joined the data revolution by progressively publishing their data catalogues as Open Data, making the data accessible and reusable by everyone. However, much of the most valuable data is personal data, whose publication out in the open may threaten privacy. To find out how to harness the potential of Open Data while making sure privacy

Finding the right school is probably one of the most important decisions in many parents' lives. You would like your child to be educated in a place which provides a safe environment and offers high-quality education. Preferably, this school is located in your direct neighbourhood, and it should offer world-class facilities and the best teachers in town. But how to find schools satisfying all these criteria? Use Open Data! Open Data does not only allow parents to identify the schools in the vicinity of their house, but it could also allow parents to compare the quality of schools based on a

Electrical bikes are increasingly popular in Europe. According to the latest figures, in Germany electric bicycles now account for 12.5% of the total bike sales; in Holland the e-bike market share in 2015 reached 28% of the total bike market. This figure is close to the development that is predicted for the e-bike market in Europe in the next five years. Electrical bikes have a battery on board but you still need to pedal at least some of the time. This battery has to be recharged every now and then. Cities are adapting their infrastructure to this new development, and are installing

Everybody can use a break once in a while to relax, spend time with their family or to travel the world. During the autumn period it is a good time to think back of the summer holidays you had and to plan the holidays for next year. Open Data allows you to compare the average annual holidays per country and to compare them with the European Union average. The table below shows the average annual holidays per country based on companies with 10 employees or more. The numbers are derived from the results of the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) which is conducted every four years, last time in

Today, almost all European countries now have an Open Data portal, and across the continent these portals are becoming more advanced, being used more frequently and creating more benefits for societies. Citizens have come to rely on services that have been built using data published through data portals. From bus times to weather data to crime figures, data published on Open Data portals is having a significant impact on millions of people's lives. Yet little is known about what makes the portals that make these benefits possible sustainable; what ensures that they can respond and adapt to

Open Data is a valuable source for solving civic problems, improving transparency and closing the gap between local government and citizens. The World Council on City Data introduced 17 different themes including around 100 indicators relating to the standardisation of city data. The huge amount of data that cities gather can help solve local problems more efficiently. More cities are starting to look at the benefits of Open Data. From urban planning to employment, culture and health. Cities are publishing all sorts of data and making practical use of it. An example of how local Open data used

The European Commission published the final results of the European Data Market study. The study presents the findings of the monitoring tool on data workers, companies, users and markets among others. The findings will feed into further developing the Digital Single Market in the EU as data is a catalyst for economic growth, innovation and digitisation across all economic sectors, particularly for SMEs and start-ups. The Commission put in place a monitoring tool to measure the size and trends of the EU data economy as part of the European Data Market study, with the objective of measuring the