Chess: Watch the Artificial Intelligence

This is really awesome.  Thinking Machine 4 has an online chess game that lets you watch the computer evaluate all of the future moves in real time each time its the computer's turn.

When the machine (Black) is thinking, a network of curves is overlaid on the board.  The curves show potential moves--often several turns in the future--considered by the computer. Orange curves are moves by black; green curves are ones by white. The brighter curves are thought by the program to be better for white. 

I found this posted by Nathan on Simple Complexity.

Ben Fry's Zipcode Project

Ben Fry is the author of Visualizing Data, and describes the ZipCode project in his book.  Each dot on the map is one zip code, and as you type a zip code, it highlights all of the dots that share that portion of the zip code.  You can turn on the "zoom" feature that zooms farther into the map for each digit you add.

This is built with the open source Processing tool that was recently released to the world as version 1.0.

Here are all of the zip codes that start with "6"

Thanks Steve for sending the link!

Here's a link to Ben's book on Amazon:

The Nuclear Express

From NYTimes.com, this graphic is a summary of the proliferation of nuclear weapons based on the new book "The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation" by Thomas C. Reed and Danny B. Stillman.  The graphic is part of the NY Times article titled "Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb".

"The Nuclear Express" a new book on the history of the atomic age, describes the interlocking web of influence and espionage behind the proliferation of nuclear technology.  This diagram gives a summary of the authors' tracking of the transfers of nuclear technology and secrets.

Thanks Jesse for sending in the link.

The AI Landscape

From the Association of the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a cool poster image designed by Giacomo Marchesi that lays out the different areas of AI development.

Thanks Zach!  Also can be found on digg.com

10,000+ iPhone Apps Mosaic

To help Apple celebrate 10,000 iPhone apps in the iTunes App Store, TapTapTap created this iPhone mosaic using icons from the available apps.

Check out the TapTapTap blog.

Here is the high-resolution image.

World of Apple is offering the image as a poster for $50

The Hidden Cost of War

Found on both Information Aesthetics and Visualizing Econmics.

The Species-Scape

Christopher Taylor posted this image on his Catalogue of Organisms blog, and it has raised a little controversey about the details.  The intent is that the relative size of each organism in the image is representative of the number of species in that group.  So the large fly represents the huge number of insect species.  Towards that intent, I believe the image succeeds, but I have read some disagreement about the specific numbers used to develop the image.

In case you're wondering where the mammals are, we're represented by the reindeer cowering underneath the mushroom.

Two very similar images with some differences are also available.  One from the University of Sydney:

And another on from Cornell University: (this link wasn't working for me)

No matter which is exactly correct (and there's no way to tell), you get the point how small number of species of mammals are compared to the others.

Thanks Kevin, for sending in the link!

The "Super" Family Tree of Dinosaurs

Recently published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society, Biological Sciences, Volume 275 Number 1650 on November 7, 2008.

This is over my head, but this radial family tree shows the diversity of dinosaur species.  It's used in the article to help challenge the theory that dinosaurs went through a rapid decline during the Cretaceous period.  A brief summary is online over at The New Scientist.

Furthermore, we conclude that dinosaurs did not experience a progressive decline at the end of the Cretaceous, nor was their evolution driven directly by the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution (KTR).

Thanks for the link Michael!

The Three Laws of Great Graphs

Back in July, Seth Godin posted his"three laws of great graphs" for PowerPoint presentations.  I may not agree with Seth's laws, but I thought it worth sharing for discussion.

1. One Story: While I don't agree for all infographics, I do agree with this specifically for giving PowerPoint presentation.  Steve Jobs is a master at this, or the master is whoever makes his keynote presentations.

2. No Bar Charts: I don't disagree that there are some horrible bar charts out there, but I don't think they should be eliminated altogether.  They have their place, and since they are the default chart in PowerPoint they often get used when another type of chart would be more appropriate.

3. Motion: I'll cautiously agree with this one.  Animation in PowerPoint is often distracting, but can be used as Seth describes.  Don't get caught up in slide transitions, but use animation to highlight the point you are trying to convey to your audience.

Voyager Infographic video

Voyager from Jaime Arvizu on Vimeo.

Jaime Arvizu, a student at the Vancouver Film School, sent me a link to this infographic video that he and his team mates (Tyler Lemermeyer and Leo Aguiar) created for their Motion Design class.  You can find a high resolution version at Jaime's blog.

Thanks for sending this in Jaime, I love it!