Dataviz by Sunlight

Idea of the Week: Open Vs. Closed

On The Business Pages this week, Tim Wu has a story about the open-versus-closed debate in the technology industry.

On The Business Pages this week, Tim Wu has a story about the open-versus-closed debate in the technology industry.

Conflict History: All Human Conflicts on a Single Map

Conflict History [conflicthistory.com], developed by TecToys, summarizes all major human conflicts onto a single world map - from the historical wars way before the birth of Christ, until the drone attacks in Pakistan that are still happening today. The whole interactive map is build upon data retrieved from Google and Freebase open data services.

Global cloud coverage

In the latest Chrome experiment, Google mapped cloud coverage around the world in Cloud Globe. The interactive animation shows coverage from July 1, 2010 to September 12, 2012, with a globe that you can move around as expected and a timeline on the bottom that indicates high levels of coverage.

Google Maps shows how we spent summer 2012

In the blink of an eye, summer is coming to an end. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was planning out all my summer activities as I eagerly awaited the start of long, sunny days and warm nights.

Before we approach the official end of summer on September 21, our Google Maps team thought it’d be fun to see how those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have spent the dog days. To do this, we reviewed the summer search activity on maps.google.com in several countries between the end of May and the beginning of September. Within each country, a look at some of the top-rising searches and the often-searched landmarks on Google Maps gives us a sense of how people around the world spent their summers.

Real-time Satellites in Google Earth

This collection by Analytic Graphics Inc. shows real-time positions of 13,000 satellites around the Earth in Google Earth.

Is this the future of Project Glass?

Project Glass made a big splash not too long ago at Google’s annual developer conference when they showed several users falling on to the Moscone West in San Francisco. Google’s pretty bent on showing us the sharing possibilities with Project Glass, but it feels like in time that technology could become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Fortunately for those of us who lack a hyperactive imagination, a short film popped up recently that can help fill in the blanks.

Forty years of our planet, from space

Today we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Landsat satellite program — now the longest-running continuous acquisition of satellite images of the Earth’s surface. Over the years, Landsat has collected petabytes of images offering an historic perspective on planetary change that can help scientists, independent researchers, and nations make informed economic and environmental policy decisions.

We’re working with the USGS and Carnegie Mellon University, to make parts of this enormous collection of imagery available to the public in timelapse videos of the Earth’s surface. With them you can travel through time, from 1999-2011, to see the transformation of our planet. Whether it’s deforestation in the Amazon, urban growth in Las Vegas or the difference in snow coverage between the seasons. Here are a few highlights.

Are Connectedness and Transparency the Key to Recovery?

The Guardian’s Datastore recently announced the results of the economic recovery visualization competition they ran with Google. We’re going to highlight a different competition entry every Wednesday for the next few weeks. Today’s entry, “Are Connectedness and Transparency the Key to Recovery?” by Ryan Panchadsaram, was chosen as the winner of the competition.

Google Earth A to Z: Flight Simulator

With the the release of Google Earth 4.2 back in 2007, Google added a much-requested feature to the product; a flight simulator. To try it out for yourself, simply go to [Tools] —> [Enter Flight Simulator] and dive in!

Google Now

It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform, or your favorite team’s score while they’re playing. And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.

Google launches Endangered Language Project

Today, Google announced the launch of the Endangered Language Project, “a website for people to find and share the most up-to-date and comprehensive information about endangered languages.” The project was built in conjunction with the Alliance for Language Diversity.

Google and its partners hope the Endangered Language Project will help by providing “an online resource to record, access, and share samples of and research on endangered languages, as well as to share advice and best practices for those working to document or strengthen languages under threat.”

Get Email Alerts when New Aerial Images are available for your Area

The future of visualizing.

fastcompany:

“The input to this device is a real challenge because there is no physical keyboard—just like a phone doesn’t have a physical keyboard—and there is no touch screen either. How do you input? We’ve dabbled and experimented with lots of different types of input including using your voice, using some type of touch interface on the side of the device itself, as well as using your head,” Lee says. “So using your head as input, for example, we’ve tried dozens and dozens of different types of head gestures. As you can imagine, some are more extreme than others. It creates a pretty funny experience. In fact, we created a game internally, both to exercise and test things out, but also to demonstrate the absurdity of using your head. It’s kind of like DDR but with your head instead of your feet.”

Google’s Project Glass: Inside The Problem Solving And Prototyping

journo-geekery:

How Google Collected Data From Wi-Fi Networks - Graphic - NYT

Notable:

The bottom-left point about geolocating routers is fascinating, considering costs and speed but how ‘fixed’ are routers given their shoddy shelf-life?

For those who don’t password-protect their wifi signals, I’m curious if there’s a change in content captured and if *google* would be curious about it (also, wouldn’t it be polluted by neighboring freeloaders?)