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It’s now official, I will be in Oxford in the end of July to talk at TED Global. It’s without a doubt a great privilege and honor to be in such a respectable stage as TED, an event I’ve profoundly admired over the years. The TED website is perhaps my favorite bookmark and an outstanding source of knowledge. I’m really thrilled with the idea and I’m sure it will be a great experience.
I returned from New York 2 weeks ago after talking at the inaugural CAT (Creativity and Technology) conference organized by Creativity Magazine. There was a lot of interesting people there, like Aaron Koblin, Ben Fry and Nick Bilton, and plenty of creative directors from a variety of digital agencies, such as Organic, Crispin Porter + Bogursky, R/GA, amongst others. The key topics emerging from most talks were around Mobile Development, Data Visualization and Augmented Reality, and I must say that being somehow disconnected from the latter I was surprised to see some of the current developments in the field. I shared the stage with Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, director of the Allosphere Research Laboratory - an impressive 3 storey high visualization environment. JoAnn is an engaging speaker and it was great to hear her describe the Allosphere in detail.
Allosphere (left) & Geodome (right)
After CAT in New York and HATCH, in Asheville (North Carolina) last April, and talking with the people behind Allosphere and Geodome, respectively JoAnn Kuchera-Morin and David McConville, it really became clear that we’re facing an increasing need for alternative ways of visualizing data that go way beyond the common mouse-screen configuration. These 2 projects provide immersive visualization environments that allow the discovery of different levels of information in a rich and engaging way, miles apart from any screen-based online tool. Being inside one of Elumenati’s Geodomes was an outstanding escapade from the mundane, which I described in a previous post, so I can only imagine what it must feel like to be inside a 3 storey high sphere, with surrounding visuals and sound in a truly multi-sensorial immersive experience. I cannot wait to visit JoAnn in my next trip to California…
I was really excited to hear that one of my favorite Portuguese newspapers won the prestigious D&AD Yellow Pencil Award. The annual D&AD Awards are highly respected, and regarded as a major event in the world of design and advertising. Público (Portuguese for Public) is a Portuguese daily national newspaper, widely regarded as a newspaper of record. It began publication on March 5, 1990, and since then it has been at the forefront of Portuguese journalism and alternative methods of information delivery. Here’s Público’s award entry and the list of 2009 winners at Creative Review.
Form Magazine (Germany) and Creativity Magazine (US) have recently published two interesting pieces, respectively “InfoGraphics” and “Information Beautification”, on the recent outburst of interest for Information Visualization. Both address some of the trends of the field and future challenges. I’ve been interviewed on both articles so you might expect the occasional quote. Enjoy the reading…
Internet Map - This project by Chris Harrison displays the relative densities of Internet connectivity across the globe. It maps how cities across the globe are interconnected (by router configuration), in a total of 89,344 connections. As the author points out “it’s important to note that this only reflects density of connections, and not usage - hundreds of people may utilize a single connection in an internet cafe, often the only form of connectivity people have access to in developing nations”.
Air Lines - This project aims at mapping worldwide airline routes. Every single scheduled flight on any given day is represented by a fine line from its point of origin to the airport of destination, therefore forming a net of thousands of lines. Hubs like JFK, FRA or DXB turn into heavy condensed nodes where lines meet, while local routes are only slightly discernible. Every scheduled airline route has been extracted from booking and airline systems.
Detailed view of European connectivity: Internet Map (left) and Air Lines (right). Although the view on the right seems substantially more intricate, it’s quite misleading since it also includes airline routes to/from destinations outside Europe, while the view on the left comprises solely connections within that region.
Data Cartography
The first pattern that emerges from the two projects is that even though no country borders or geographic features are displayed (only data is plotted) it’s still fairly easy to perceive the shape of most continents and regions of the globe, particularly in the map of airline routes.
Democratization
Another extrapolation between both projects relates to connectivity distribution. Airline routes are apparently more democratic and globally widespread. We can notice how some regions, such as Africa, Asia and South America become much more connected to the rest of the world, providing a better match with population density in these areas. However, this apparent democratization of the globe can be deceiving, since many of the routes to those predominantly dark regions are representative of tourism traffic. You can easily see how small islands lost in the darkness of the Internet Map become bright interconnected hubs in the Air Lines map, indicating what in many cases is a popular tourist destination. But even though air routes depict a more distributed portrait of the globe, the common unbalanced view of Europe and the US, as the two largest central hubs, is still immediately perceived.
Open Datasets have been a key driving force for the current emergence of Information Visualization, and an important encouragement for online services such as Many Eyes and Swivel. Institutions, companies and governments, across the globe, are increasingly opening their private datasets to the general public, allowing easy access and use of the data. This in return is leading to more data cross-linking and demand for appropriate filtering, analysis and visualization.
But this movement still has a long way to go. In a talk at TED posted in March 2009, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, talks about the need for linked data. He engages the audience on his new quest by asking them to shout “raw data now!”, reinforcing what in his view is our responsibility to demand for more interoperable raw data. As Tim Berners-Lee points out, it’s not just about collecting data, it’s about connecting it. Only then the interesting patterns start to emerge.
An appropriate response to Tim Berners-Lee’s wish has just surfaced this weekend in what many consider to be the most serious alternative to Google, and clearly a fundamental step towards a semantic web. Although slightly different in scope from Google search (the point is not to look for sites, but for knowledge), Wolfram|Alpha is remarkably promising and I highly recommend going through many of the great examples on the site. As they state on their About page:
Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.
You can check some initial reactions to the service on their blog or read about the infrastructure supporting this massive endeavor. Go and have a try:
To my Portuguese followers and VC audience, here’s the presentation (in Portuguese) that was shown at different venues and events in Lisbon between 6-8 May, 2009:
I finally got some time to write on the idea of Cycles of Data Centrality - something I’ve been thinking and discussing with people lately. It tries to make the case that “even though individual technological components evolve in a really fast and unique pace, the way in which they interrelate and behave might follow some level of cyclical occurrence”.
Predictions always feel like empty promises and there can be no certainty on what the future holds. Is the Netbook a predecessor of a future class of dumb terminals entirely dependent on the Cloud? Is Cloud Computing really going to be the next big thing? If so, how long will it last? Will it prove to be a long lasting shift or will people grow increasingly wary of their privacy and lack of ownership and return to a similar model as we have today, and in the process instigate a fourth cycle?
You can read the full article here:
http://www.mslima.com/writings/data_centrality.cfm
I’ll be leaving London soon, for a speaking marathon in Lisbon next week. Between May 6-8 I will be talking in 6 different schools and institutions, and being interviewed by 3 different media channels. In case you are in Lisbon at the time and are not being absorbed by OFFF, here is a list of my public talks (which I’m assuming anyone can attend):
From a series of conversations with people in HATCH, it really hit me the need for our community to come together on the global effort of building a responsive public awareness for sustainability. We can really make a difference! Thousands of researchers around the world are conducting a series of environmental studies and collecting petabytes of relevant data. We can help them better communicate their findings and in the process help driving knowledge, education, and potentially uncover hidden patterns in the data - one of the key strengths of data visualization.
Visualizing your last.fm network of friends is cool, but we have many other urgent problems that need to be addressed. Intensive Farming, Land Degradation, Overpopulation, Ozone Depletion, Water Pollution, Waste, etc. The list of environmental issues is long and in desperate need of powerful, functional and rich visualizations. Besides our moral duty, many of these topics present problems of organized complexity, where hundreds of variables are interconnected and interdependent, posing astoundingly compelling visualization challenges for developers, artists, designers and programmers. If you want to join this effort, here are some links of resources where you can get environmental data:
There are currently 16 categories of projects on VisualComplexity, from Transportation Networks to Biology. My wish is to create a new category in a near future, that will be filled with fresh visualizations on many of the issues mentioned above. The name that this category might carry, either Sustainability Networks, Ecosystems, or simply Environment, is probably the least important aspect. If this wish comes to fruition it might prove that designers really want to make a difference with the tools they have at their disposal, and that Information Visualization is more that just eye-candy pictures.
Subway maps are a predominant graphic element in many cities across the world, and due to its inherent ability to illustrate intricate systems they have been used to portrait many disparate concepts. This list showcases some of these appealing projects.
As one of the most emblematic design icons of the world, the London Underground map as been one of the most popular targets for witty interpretations and adaptions. One of the most notorious experiments was developed by artist Simon Patterson in 1992. In The Great Bear, Patterson took the names of philosophers, scientists and other famous people and attached them to Underground stations:
The Great Bear - Simon Patterson (1992)
Inspired by The Great Bear and using the Internet Movie Database resource, Thomas David Baker produced this version dedicated to the movie industry, featuring a variety of Directors, Actors and Cinematographers:
Moviemaker Tube Map
In 2006, The Guardian made an attempt to chart the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map as its underlying design:
Underground Music - The Guardian (2006)
The following map shows another variation where anagrams for each individual station have replaced the original names, showing a a series of imaginary locations:
Anagram Map
This original experiment, created by illustrator Paul Middlewick in 1987, is a collection of over 20 animal characters made using only lines, stations and interchange symbols on the London Underground map. In 2003, the concept was used in a poster campaign by advertising agency McCann-Erickson to promote the London Zoo:
Animals on the Underground
For an extended list of wacky variations (and other serious ones) on the London Underground map, Owen Massey McKnight’s resource, and Geofftech are great reference points.
In 2007 the strategic design agency Information Architects (iA), based in Tokyo, Japan, launched their first Web Trend Map (of a future series of 4). Although they were candid enough with their first version, stating that it was “totally unscientific and almost useless, but definitely fun to look at”, they ended up realizing the popularity of the project. What started as a playful Christmas gift for their clients, quickly became an expected yearly publication by iA, with the authors becoming more serious and laborious with each new iteration. This yearly publication maps the 333 most influential Web domains and the 111 most influential internet people onto a series of alternated versions of the Tokyo Metro map.
First edition - Web Trend Map (2007)
Second edition - Web Trend Map (2007)
Third edition - Web Trend Map (2008)
Fourth edition - Web Trend Map (2009)
This last edition of the Web Trend Map is reminiscent of the work developed by ZEROPERZERO for their Tokyo and Seoul alternative maps:
Influenced by the previous Web Trend Maps, the following diagram aims at visualizing the same concept but using the Barcelona subway map as the underlying structure:
The Internet - Barcelona Subway Map
Just returned from Asheville, NC, after a warm invigorating weekend in the mountains. I was there for HATCH – a first-time gathering of creative minds from many areas, such as Music, Film, Journalism, Photography, Fashion, Architecture and Design & Technology. I was invited by HATCH to be a mentor on the Design & Technology program at the festival, together with Joe Wilcox (Toy Inventor at IDEO), Evan Twyford (Industrial Designer at NASA), Scott Pagano (Motion Artist), Nick Hiatt (3D Artist) and Robb Pope (VJ). We were all together in a panel last Saturday, on the topic of innovation. The panel was well conducted by Sean McDonald with plenty of pertinent questions from the audience. The next day I had a chance to give an individual talk on the topic of Network Visualization and it was great to catch up with many people interested in the topic. Overall the festival was a success, mostly due to its small, casual and friendly atmosphere. If the organizers are able to maintain this small scale in future editions, it will certainly be a thriving event for many years to come.
What surprised me most about Asheville was not the warmth of the weather or the people, or even the beautiful mountain scenery, but its stronghold art & design community. I met great people doing outstanding work with a strong determination to leave a mark, change the status quo, and expressing a deep concern on sustainability and environmental practices. Asheville felt a bit like Austin (Texas), a small liberal bastion in a predominantly red state, where tolerant and broadminded views are felt in every corner. In Asheville’s case, due to the presence of the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (the world’s largest active archive of weather data) in their downtown area, people seem to be even more aware of environmental issues, which also explains the strong concentration of professionals interested in alternative ways of visualizing meteorological geo-based data.
One of the people driving this battle is David McConville, a brilliant researcher who has dedicated the past six years to an extraordinary geodome visual analysis technology part of The Elumenati. On my very first morning in Asheville, I went with some of the mentors of the Design & Technology program and other HATCH organizers to David’s studio, where we sat inside his 15-foot inflatable dome and watched in astonishment the technology they have put in place, as we swiftly crossed the Milky Way, across millions of years of cosmic evolution, driven by David’s captivating narrative.
I also had a chance to meet Andrew Jones from the Sustainability Institute, who is conducting a series of relevant research projects involving data visualization to empower users with environmental awareness. I was also impressed with the amount of work, dedication and innovation that has been put in place by Sean McDonald and the remaining Jute Networks team, in the creation of an immensely powerful network analysis tool. I’ve definitely brought home the insightful conversations I had with many great minds in Asheville, particularly David McConville and Sean McDonald. It was also great to meet many other participants and organizers of the festival, who created a really unique experience.
Here is an update on my upcoming talks.
Tomorrow I’m flying out to Asheville (North Carolina) for a keynote talk at HATCHfest.
On May 6-8 I will give a series of talks and interviews in Lisbon, in different places including:
On June 2-3 I will be in New York for a talk at CAT – Creativity and Technology.
On July 9-10 I will be in Southampton for a talk at InterFace’09 – University of Southampton.
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You can always check the slides from my last talk @ Interaction’09 in Vancouver:
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In case you’re in any of these destinations at that time, and want to meet for a beer or coffee, just send me an email.
I’m happy to announce I’ll be in New York in June to talk at CAT - Creativity and Technology. Organized by Creativity magazine, the event is a “gathering of brand creativity professionals and tech-side development companies for a discussion of furthering creativity through technology”. You can register for it here.
Here’s an interesting Future Vision Montage by Microsoft Office Labs. In an effort to understand certain questions such as “How will emerging technology improve our productivity in the years ahead?” or “What opportunities will arise from evolving trends and global change?”, Microsoft has collaborated with customers, partners, and thought leaders across multiple disciplines to develop scenarios that explore how long-term trends, customer challenges, and emerging technologies might converge to improve our lives, both at work and home.
You can see other videos related to the future of Health, Retail, Manufacturing or Productivity on their Envisioning section. Very worthwhile! You can also check this blog post, with additional info on the project and a few screenshots.
