What is Wolfram|Alpha?

I'm not sure I understand what Wolfram|Alpha is yet, but so far it's pretty impressive.  Developed by Stephen Wolfram and his team, it claims to be a "computational knowledge engine".  The input box looks like a search engine, but it is definitely NOT a search engine.

When you type in a question, it attempts to show you all of the relevant data it can find.  It is actually calculating and charting this information real-time in order to present it to you.  Because its built on top of the Mathematica Engine, it can also handle math problems.

I think this will be an important tool for many designers of infographics, because you can get some of your raw data directly from Wolfram|Alpha.  As they add more data into the system over time, this will become one of your best resources for information.  They have a pretty extensive page of examples by category that is a great place to start.  Also watch the short video by Stephen Wolfram showing what the system can do.

SXSW Twitter Visualizer from Pepsi

The 2009 SXSW PepsiCo Zeitgeist Twitter Visualizer (long name isn't it?) was a great experiment during the 5-day South By Southwest symposium/conference/party in Austin, TX.  Developed by Slash7, the site contains a number of dufferent visualizations using the Twitter APIs.

These real-time visualizations were able to capture only Tweets about the event using the hash-tag #SXSW and highlight the popular topics and show where people were Twittering on a map.  PepsiCo has a bigger site with some additional content at http://pepsico.com/sxsw

Found on Information Aesthetics and of course, Twitter.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Video by Jonathan Jarvis, makes sense of the credit crisis.  HD version is available at http://crisisofcredit.com/. 

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

The Ultimate Mammal Family Tree

This is very cool.  Going back 166 million years to see each of the branches where we share common mammalian ancestors.  The PDF is available for download, and is very detailed.  You need to zoom a long way to even see that there is text naming each of the known mammals in existence today.  It's a radial family tree that also represents a timeline as you move outwards from the center.  Here we are:

 

 

ABC TV in Australia did a short video on the family tree hosted by Dr. Paul Willis, and he literally walks around the infographic describing different parts.  Well done, and seemed very reminiscent of Carl Sagan in some of his shows.  The video credits Robin Beck, a Mammalian Systematist as the University of NSW, of creating the family tree.  Here's the link to the ABC page where you can watch the video, or you can click on the image below.

Thanks for the link Alwyn!  Great find!

Why Do Freeways Come to a Stop?

This is a simple, good infographic that seeks to explain why traffic on freeways slows to a crawl without any apparent reason to drivers.  By Stephen J. Beard and Rich Exner in The Plain Dealer.

EDIT: Here's a link to the original article, and a high-res PDF of the infographic.

Infographic Video: The Histoy of the Internet

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

Cool video created by Melih Bilgil

"History of the internet" is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to file-sharing, from arpanet to internet.  The history is told with help of the PICOL icons, which are also a part of my diploma. The icons are soon available for free on picol.org

Found on Information Aesthetics, and thanks to Ethel for the Tweet.

Immigration to the U.S. 1820-2007

Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 v2 from Ian Stevenson on Vimeo.

Cool video by Ian Stevenson (hosted on Vimeo) that animates the origins and number of people that immigrated to the U.S. every decade from 1820 to 2007.

Thanks Garrett for the link!

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.

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 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!