information aesthetics (2 unread)

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  Map Stack: Designing a Map in Easy and Fun Ways

  Posted: 18-June-2013, 4:15pm EDT

  
  Map Stack [stamen.com] by Stamen Design aims to make it radically simpler for lay people to design completely unique, personalized maps.

  The online visual map design service provides easy access to the color, opacity and brightness of any map background, road, label, or satellite imagery. Users can also create custom-made image overlays and layer effects, or layers that are used as cut-out masks for other layers.

  Currently, the default styles include minimalistic black/white, watercolor or 3D-like terrain, which can all be freely changed and fine-tuned.

  

  
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  re:log: Tracking the Movements of Conference Attendees via WiFi

  Posted: 18-June-2013, 4:44pm EDT

  
  re:log [opendatacity.de] by German data designers OpenDataCity reveals the movements of about 6,700 different electronic devices during re:publica 2013, a prestigious European conference on the topic of Digital Society.

  A dynamic map of the conference location shows the approximate locations of the devices when they were connected to the local WiFi hotspots. An interactive timeline underneath allows to explore the dynamic changes over time, while a rectangular area can be drawn to more specifically highlight and follow a smaller amount of dots.

  The visualization was based on tracking the MAC addresses of the devices according to the WiFi hotspot they were connected to. This data, which can be downloaded, was fully anonymized, yet the authors mention their desire to allow people to look up their own MAC address in the future.

  

  
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  Points: Smart Robotic Street Sign Rotates towards Direction of Content

  Posted: 7-June-2013, 10:31am EDT

  
  Points [breakfastny.com] by futuristic product development studio Breakfast is a new kind of street sign that dynamically rotates towards the direction of the real-time content it is showing.

  The directional street sign consists of 3 separate arms pointing in different directions, each containing a LED display that shows specific text or graphics about a nearby destination. Depending on the actual location of the content it displays, each arm is able to rotate endlessly around 360? degrees. The content varies depending on what passers-by select via a list of buttons, ranging from public transport arrival times nearby to the content and actual location of Twitter messages.

  Watch the short documentary video below.

  Via FastCoCreate.

  

  
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  Eurovision Tracker: the Twitter Buzz and Conversations per Country

  Posted: 5-June-2013, 3:51pm EDT

  
  Eurovision Tracker [brandwatch.com] by social analytics company Brandwatch provides a visual overview of the Twitter buzz during the live Eurovision final that took place on 18th May.

  In this streamgraph visualization, each colored stream represents a conversation about a particular country's performance, such as the artist's appearance, song, "sex factor", stagefactor or dance routine, or about specific emotions, such as love, fear or hate.

  Some live annotations are marked on the graph and shown in the stream on the right hand side, whereas an interactive timeline at the bottom allows for further exploration.
  

  

  
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  NeuroKnitting: Knitting a Personalized Scarf from Brainwave Activity

  Posted: 5-June-2013, 4:01pm EDT

  
  NeuroKnitting [knitic.com] by Varvara Guljajeva, Mar Canet, and Sebastian Mealla consists of a collection of knitted garments that represent the wearer's affective and cognitive states while listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations' aria and its first 7 variations.

  First the EEG correlates of relaxation, engagement and cognitive load were recorded while people were listening to the musical piece. This information was then used by an open hardware knitting machine Knitic to create a bicolor pattern for knitting several scarves.

  The knitted garments thus visualize the listener's affective and cognitive states as a unique and personalized textile pattern.

  

  
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  The 3D Trajectories of the Tennis Ball during the Final ATP Matches

  Posted: 29-May-2013, 5:51am EDT

  
  Corona Perspectives [coronaperspectives.com] developed by advertising agency JWT Spain and web development studio Espada y Santa Cruz provides an interactive and 3D perspective of all the tennis ball trajectories during 3 past ATP tennis matches.

  The online interface provides different ways of exploring the large amount of tennis game data. An interactive timeline at the bottom of the screen allows the filtering of the trajectories according to the successive sets or different points during the match. The heatmap view denotes the zones on the playing field where the ball landed most often. The particle view highlights the trajectories where the ball had the most impact.

  See also US Open Tennis Real-Time Data Visualization.

  

  
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  Every One, Every Day: Media Architecture Cube Reflects Energy Usage

  Posted: 28-May-2013, 4:09pm EDT

  
  Every One, Every Day [kuuki.com.au], designed by media production collective Kuuki, is a media architecture installation measuring 27 cubic meters that reflects the near real-time price and demand of energy in New South Wales, Australia.

  The cube was built out of recycled polyethylene, a material derived from used milk bottles. Its 27 cubic meters represents approximately 1 day of CO2 that is typically emitted in Australia. At night, the cube emits different colors: warm orange hues represent peak demand, while blue hues convey lower demands. Sudden spikes in the price trigger white flashes.

  See also CarbonVisuals: Making Carbon Dioxide Emissions more Graspable.

  

  
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  Beatquake: the Music Listening Activity across Facebook over 90 days

  Posted: 28-May-2013, 4:29pm EDT

  
  Mapping Music on Facebook [facebookstories.com] by Stamen Design for Facebook shows the dynamic characteristics of the typical listening activity across Facebook.

  Inspired by the dynamic movement of a graphic equalizer, Beatquake maps the popularity of the top three most popular songs in the U.S., each day over the course of 90 days, by way of vertically moving particles.

  Colored layers, each representing one song, rise and fall over geographic locations to correspond with the number of plays in that area. The texture of the map is driven by BPMs (beats per minute), and thus changes as one song overtakes another in popularity.

  Watch the movie below. More information about the design process behind this project can be found here.

  

  
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  30 Years of "Oxford Summer Eight" Rowing Boat Bump Races

  Posted: 21-May-2013, 4:10pm EDT

  
  The interactive visualization Men's Eights 1980 - 2012 [feathersquare.com] by Feather and Square provides a complete overview of the "Oxford Summer Eight" bump race results.

  Individual teams can be selected to explore their historical performance between 1980 and now

  A bumps race is a form of rowing race which is particularly practiced at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, at which boats try to catch up and "bump" the boat in front of them. Winning bumpers then move up in the next year statistics.

  

  
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  Hospital Rates: Comparing Hospital Costs versus their Mortality Rate

  Posted: 21-May-2013, 4:37pm EDT

  
  Is your local (U.S.) hospital more expensive than others? And how does its mortality rate stack up against others?

  Hospital Costs [kitware.com] developed by visualization and imaging company Kitware, contrasts statistics about hospital-specific charges of more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals with the mortality rate, for the conditions pneumonia and heart failure.

  While the bar chart and scatter plot techniques are kept relatively simple, a rich set of interactive features are offered, such as the of filtering specific conditions or setting the variables of the 2 axes, to highlighting smaller subsets within the dataset.

  So what is the least expensive hospital with the lowest mortality rate?