Google's New Public Data Explorer

As great as WolframAlpha is for data search, I have to say that as a designer, I am partial to visual representations and graphs. Google recently released its visual data representation labs that track the rates of everything from birth rate to retail sales rates on an interactive graph. Of course it's Google, and of course it's free.

Check some of them out here:

International Fertility Rates vs. Death Rates

Link to explore

Unemployment Rate By State

Link to explore

Reported STD Cases in the US by State

Link to explore

Windows Mobile is not dead

Following iPhone OS (Apple), WebOS (Palm), and Android (Google), Microsoft has finally modernized its mobile platform (Windows Mobile). Windows Mobile is a new stripped and completely reworked mobile OS, taking some cue's from the wonderful Zune HD interface, but also adding many new features. The new UI (user interface) completely removes the classic (and sadly boring) windows feel, and replaces it with a streamlined, ultra useable, no gloss/shadow, simple recipe of shear usability. I love where this is going. What do you think?

Grab the preview here (engadget).

Google Smartphones To Translate Live

Franz Och, head of Google's Translation Services and Chair of the Hilarious Names Committee, said recently that Google is working on improving speech recognition software so that live translation can occur language to language. Imagine calling a friend who only speaks Swedish and being able to communicate with them as if they were speaking to you in perfect English. Important to note, as PhysOrg says, "Google's system would analyze speech in the same way as a human interpreter, listening to a package of speech to gather the full meaning before it attempts to translate. It will improve in accuracy the more it is used." Google expects to release this function after a few more years of research.

The implications of this are huge. Economic dominance has forced certain languages to become more prevalent on a global scale. This type of technology would preserve languages as they are, allowing families and regions to have their own dialects and colloquialisms. For right now, I think, as posted below, it is direly important that Americans join the bi- and trilingual groups that are populating the world, and learn a few languages.

How It's Made: Google Nexus One

Alright Google, you got me. I love this kind of thing.

Google has been putting together a series of short films collectively called Nexus One: The Story. Now in case you missed it, the Nexus One is the Google phone. Yeah, there are a lot of Android phones (DROID, G1, etc.), but the Nexus One is the first phone that Google has directly collaborated on the actual hardware and design. The company manufacturing the device, HTC, worked closely with Google to fabricate the perfect Android phone in Google's image.

Check out all of the videos after the break.

Real Time Webcams Enrich Google Earth

I almost cannot remember a time when I couldn't go to my computer and get turn my turn directions to anywhere I wanted to go, down to the feet on the block. Google Earth and Google Maps have changed the way humans use both navigational systems and maps themselves. Below, PhD candidate Austin Abrams has developed a system that utilizes live webcam feeds to inform the facades of buildings in Google Earth. The system is connected to nearly 1000 webcams, some of which need to be calibrated by locals (if you get a few minutes, public help is requested). The NewScientist article quotes Georgia Tech researcher Kiwhan Kim as saying he is impressed with the new technology, but sees that full real-time Google Earth is still years away.

A quick video after the jump.