Mapping global consumer commodity prices in real time

This is brilliant. TheAtlantic does a profile of Premise that attempts to map out commodity prices around the world paying consumers to take pictures of prices of basic commodities in local markets.

At the bottom of the page is the array of vegetable photos, which make up th data. Premise isn't just an inflation report, Soloff says again. It's map that tells you where prices are going up—“city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, store by store”—to help governments and agencies track the tremor of inflation from its epicenter. Each vegetable observation comes with a price and a drop-pin on a map, to show Premise exactly where prices are moving and where they're not moving.

Given how inefficient many local markets can be, off the top of my head I can think of a number of commercial applications - the least of it is tracking inflation and other economic data far more efficiently.