PUBLIC MARKS from Spone with tags monitoring & flickr

Lately we’ve been tinkering with deploying Android beyond the phone (using Google’s open-source Android to connect devices to each other and the web), so we thought we’d see if we could leverage the efficiency of Android on a BeagleBoard, the accessibility of wireless webcams, and the ease of a Flickr feed to a custom Google Gadget to track the ups and downs of our metered utilities. Why webcams? While there may be a few compelling (low-cost, low-impact) products out there to monitor your electric meter, there are no comparable products for reading gas or water meters. So until the really smart grid arrives, here’s a way to chart your whole utility spend on your own Google homepage.