searchCrystal

Check this one out! The graphic above is an embedded object from searchCrystal that lets you search multiple sources for images (or other forms of information). I've preloaded it to search for "inforgraphics" from GoogleImages, Flickr, AskImages, YahooImages and MSNImages. When you dig a little deeper, you can choose the different sources you are searching from, save searches, share results with others, etc.

The arrangement shows the overlap of the results from multiple sites. Simple navigation like scrolling over images enlarges them, and clicking takes you to the source image.

Also works for video, blogs, tags, news, etc...blah, blah, blah. We only care about images don't we?

The Bloomberg Makeover

Three design firms took on the challenge of re-designing the Bloomberg terminal interface, and the results were fantastic. The challenge came from Portfolio.com. The original article is here, but the fantasy terminals are here with an interactive interface that lets you highlight and zoom in on particular features. The design above is from thehappycorp.com and is my personal favorite.

Bloomberg claims to be constantly improving their interface design, but it still looks like runs on DOS and is straight out of the 80's.

Here is the desing from IDEO.com:

And one from Ziba.com:

Microsoft Car HUD

Found on arstechnica.com, this one has me really excited. I have been disappointed for at least two decades that real HUDs (Heads-Up Displays) have not become standard, or even available as a third party product for our cars. Now a US patent application from Microsoft has been published showing a possible future HUD for your car.

More than just your speed, with today's technology we should have things like incoming caller-id, compass direction, outside temperature, current playing music title, live GPS map and distance to the car in front of us showing around the edges of our windshields.

We can only cross our fingers and hope that this would some day become a reality.

Web Trend Map 2007 v2

Our friends over at InformationArchitects.com have updated their WebTrends poster showing the...

...200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. We have done it again – and better. Upon popular demand – here is iA’s next Web Trend Map:

Thanks to Brian Johnson from the Microsoft Mac BU for pointing this one out.

Gapminder on Google!

Here it is! Live on Google. Gapminder is the Trendalyzer software used by Hans Rosling and acquired by Google. It's now online at Google, but it looks like an early test. I'm not sure if you can use your own data yet or not, but that is one of the goals.

Check out all of the Gapminder tools, and see more presentations using the Gapminder software at www.gapminder.org