Humanity's Digital Heartbeat
Think about what a heartbeat is for a second. It never stops (until the day it does, but for more data on that check out last week’s post), it’s the constant background hum to everything we do.
Social media can be a lot like a heartbeat for the entire planet. It’s always on and if for some reason it ever did stop you’d feel very real fear that the world had ended. It’s the constant background noise we’ve all become so accustomed to: every second we send out 6,000 Tweets. Every minute, we upload 300 hours of video to Youtube. Every day over 58,000,000 photos are uploaded to Instagram. That’s a lot of data.
And of course wherever there’s data there are amazing ways to look at it.
It's a jungle out there
We’ve mentioned before about how much data we, as a species, seem to be collecting these days. There’s data out there for just about everything you can imagine from Mozart to movies.
This week we were back on one of our favorite sites, FlowingData.com, and got caught up in all of the data surrounding a topic that, while decidedly macabre, is nevertheless on everyone’s mind every now and then.
Lock the doors, bolt the windows and gather your courage because this week we’re looking at just what a dangerous place the world can be.
Look Ma, We're On T.V.
On Fridays, we generally share our favorite data visualizations from the past week.
Today we’d like to break from tradition, but we have a fantastic reason for doing so.
For those who don’t know, VisualCue’s main offices are in Orlando, Florida. Lately this region has seen a huge spike in technology patent applications, and it caught the attention of local media. We were interviewed along with our patent attorneys at Lowndes Drosdick Doster Kantor Reed, P.A. to discuss what it means for VisualCue and the entire Central Florida region.
Data Cities
Here’s an interesting fact for you: most of the world’s population lives in cities and will continue to do so in to the future.
According to Reuters, “In 2010, a total of 80.7 percent of Americans lived in urban areas, up from 79 percent in 2000. Conversely, 19.3 percent of the U.S. population lived in rural areas in 2010, down from 21 percent in 2000.”
That makes it incredibly likely that you are reading this article right now from one of those wonderful, crowded, bustling cities. As such, this week we are proud to present a data visualization tribute to city folk!
Celebrating Mozart... with Data
On January 27th, 2016 we celebrated Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 260th birthday. Widely considered to be the world’s greatest musical treasure, we spent the day listening to his beautiful symphonies while we worked.
Something about listening to classical music makes any activity appear beautiful, noble and portentous.
So we decided to celebrate Mozart’s birthday with a special Friday data visualization special focused on music!
60 Years of Snowy Weather
As of Thursday afternoon the top news story on our feeds around the VisualCue office is the impending blizzard about to hit Washington, D.C. We sincerely hope everyone involved stays safe, warm, and experiences no more than a weekend of forced relaxation due to staying indoors.
To help make that weekend a reality we thought we’d do our part and provide some interesting data visualizations for those stuck inside this weekend to browse.
Gaming with Data
It’s a fact of the modern world that data has seeped into nearly every aspect of our lives. That’s what the Internet of Things and big data is all about, millions of devices all broadcasting data just waiting to be analyzed.
Need proof? As we were talking about our weekend plans the VisualCrew decided that most of us were going to spend it exploring our favorite digital worlds in video games. As it turns out data and the visualization thereof have become a part of our favorite pastime!
Making time for data
We love New Year’s. Just something about getting a fresh, clean start gets us optimistic.
And at VisualCue, how do we celebrate anything? With data visualizations!
To help you make the most out of every minute of the new year we’ve gathered the best visualizations from around the Internet to help you get inspired.
2015 Data Visualization Year in Review
Everyone always gets really excited looking forward to the new year. And we get it: it’s a brand new year full of possibilities, a clean slate to work from.
But we get sentimental around the VisualCue offices and at times like this we love to look back at some of our favorite memories from the past year.
And, same as ever, those memories include our favorite data visualizations from around the Internet. Added bonus- they all have something in common.
Here they are: VisualCue’s top 5 picks for best data visualizations in 2015!
Elf Performance Profiles
VisualCue was built on the belief that anyone, regardless of their training or experience, should be able to use data to its fullest potential. It’s called data transparency, and it informs everything we do as an organization.
And when we say anyone, we mean it.
This holiday season we thought that if anyone can gain actionable insights from VisualCue, why not arguably the busiest demographic in the world at this time of year?
Santa, if you’re reading this we hope you’ll take these performance profiles on three of your elves and use it to improve your operation. Our Christmas gift to you!