New Florence. New Renaissance.

The 2015 Vizzies

During two rounds of judging, science and visualization experts at the National Science Foundation and Popular Science winnowed 303 entries to 50 finalists, 10 in each category. To arrive at the Experts’ Choice, a panel of final-round judges rated the visualizations on their artistic merit and communication excellence. Readers voted online for the People’s Choice. Each of the winners was vetted for accuracy by independent experts.

Popular Science

The Big Data of US Immigration

Thanks to John Hagel, saw these 35 maps which vividly explain the “nation of immigrants” that is the US including one from 1903 which showcases the elaborate art of data visualization even back then

Sports Science at Seattle Sounders

Sports science is becoming increasingly sophisticated. AtSeattle Sounders FC, (an MLS team) David Tenney the team’s fitness coach explains how its use of wearable technology, GPS data and data from triangulated video shoots are used to build fitness profiles that are visualized in Tableau and then used to optimize training and fitness plans for the star players.

Diginomica

Photo Credit - click to enlarge

The Big Data of the Napa Earthquake

Impressive how easy it has become to find and graph the multi-dimensional impact of any event, in this case the 6.0 earthquake Sunday in Napa Valley. 

USGS chart of the epicenter and neighboring impact

Jawbone tracking of earthquake impact on sleep patterns in the area

Fine Wine 50 index which shows a blip on Monday, on the right of the graph, given Napa's importance to the wine industry. 

An aging world

Nice interactive data visualization from Fathom Information Design of how different countries are aging – if it had countries like Mexico and Pakistan it would also show how the world is getting younger.

Two still shots below

Wagenstandanzeiger – a beauty of data visualization

Click on the chart above to enlarge. The Wagenstandanzeiger chart  shows major trains which stop durinng the day at this DB Bahn platform. It shows the scheduled time, train identifier, its destination and the direction it is heading. Look closer and you see compartment numbers of each train and above them the zones (A, B, C) where they will stop.

Each platform has signs (see below of a station in Berlin and you see zone D clearly and zone C in the distance) so passengers can congregate near their appropriate zone.

Big Deal you say?

Every ticket issued by DB Bahn, even months prior, indicates the train number, platform number, compartment number and your seat numbers within that compartment. It helps organize millions of passengers who show up from many countries many without any knowledge of German or the train system in the country. It saves DB Bahn from having countless staff to ensure smooth boarding in the few minutes a train stops.

Now, think this is a unique chart for each platform in each station in the system. It is prepared months in advance for a system where trains amazingly go in both directions on each track. Think of the millions of routes and stops that are customized in each chart. Think of all the complexity it masks.

Admire its beauty while you wait for your train. Just be aware many of your fellow passengers will check and recheck it often so  don’t monopolize the view  :)

Photo Credit above

Photo Credit below

Macau: Video Analytics Capital

According to the WSJ, Macau now does 7X the casino business Las Vegas does.

But it is even further ahead when it comes to video surveillance and analytics

Reuters

“There are around 100,000 cameras installed in Macau's casinos, according to industry estimates, with room potentially for another 50,000 over the next five years. "

It's allowed firms such as ours who deal with cutting-edge surveillance technology and video analytics to gain a good loyal customer base in Macau," Graham said.

Bob Ruggles, Pelco's Asia-Pacific business development manager based in Macau, said Asian demand had "allowed us to push our products to the limit" of innovation.

In contrast, he said casinos in Las Vegas had been slow to adapt to advances in digital technology, and some were still using VCR tape, in part because of the costs associated with replacing old analogue systems. "No one (in Macau) uses analogue anymore. Those days are gone," he said”

Photo Credit Wikipedia

Highly Informative Maps

Thanks to Sandy Kemsley I saw this MyModernMet collection of 25 excellent visualizations of global data including one below of WWW usage at day/night.

“The Da Vinci of Data”

“Edward Tufte has been described by The New York Times as "The Leonardo da Vinci of Data." Since 1993, thousands have attended his day-long seminars on Information Design. That might sound like a dry subject, but with Tufte, information becomes art.

Tufte's most recent book, Beautiful Evidence, is filled with hundreds of illustrations from the worlds of art and science. It contains historical maps and diagrams as well as contemporary charts and graphs. In one chapter alone, there's an 18th-century depiction of how to do a cross-section drawing of how a bird's wing works, and photos from a 1940s instruction book for skiing.”

NPR – thanks to Frank Scavo for pointer

Photo Credit

Faster, cheaper data visualization

Nice article in Data-Informed on Todd Mostak who has done fascinating global event analytics even though his background is in economics and anthropology, not computer science

“Through World Map, Mostak worked for the Japan Data Archive, a project to collect data from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The project uses MapD to display several data sets on a map instantly.

Mostak is working with Harvard to visualize the Kumbh Mela, a 55-day Hindu religious festival that happens only once every 12 years that will see more than 80 million people attend. Mostak and MapD will visualize anonymized cell phone data to analyze crowd flow and social networks.

An example of TweetMap, displaying tweets about “hockey” in December 2012.

World Map also serves as a platform for Mostak’s first visualization project, TweetMap, which allows users to look at Twitter heat maps from 125 million tweets sent in three week span in December of 2012.”

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