Infographics old and new: top data visualisations, in pictures | News There is an infographic boom going on out there - with the internet flooded with data visualisations of the way we fight war, how we use Twitter, what music we like and how we use the, er, internet. But new as these are, there's a long tradition of telling stories using graphics. Information Graphics from Taschen, which includes work from the Guardian such as our public spending chart, tells the story of how information graphics came to rule our world. We've selected some of those from the past - to contrast with some key infographics from the past few years - albeit missing out hundreds of examples we could have chosen from the years inbetween. These are some of the images. What have we missed and which ones do you like? Information Graphics from the Guardian bookstore at a discount price of £35.99 1858 Histoire Universelle This Table of Universal History was published in Paris. 1926 Kahn 1940 Geis 2006 Esquire Body Parts. 2006 This is indexed This is Indexed. 2007 Stanford Two Mindsets. NEW!
Tracking homicides in Chicago - Tracking homicides in Chicago | RedeyeChicago.com OS mapping data: a new landscape unfolds | Technology The Free Our Data campaign has scored a major victory, with the announcement by the government that it intends to make Ordnance Survey maps free for use online by any organisation – including commercial ones – at resolutions more detailed than commercial 1:25,000 Landranger maps from April next year. The announcement of the opening of a consultation on the plan by Gordon Brown at Downing Street on Tuesday, as part of a seminar on making public data public – set in the wider context of public service reform, under the "Smarter Government" umbrella – indicates that the ideas underpinning the campaign have now been taken on board at the highest levels of government. "Mid-range" maps, with resolutions from 1:10,000 upwards, will be made available for re-use, under the plans announced by the prime minister, along with information on postcode areas and electoral and council boundaries. The issue appears to have gone to the top of government to be resolved.
Los Angeles Murders and Homicides - The Homicide Report - Los Angeles Times Maude praises UK progress on open data but private sector sees work to do | Technology An "open data" revolution kicked off by a Guardian campaign is gathering pace in the UK. The Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, is trumpeting the UK's success in making government data freely available - and pointing to examples of companies that have sprung up to create commercial businesses around free data from public bodies. Maude says that "companies including SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] and startups are using open data to improve public services and create innovative products." But, he adds, he wants both "data holders" in government and new data-driven businesses to "promote the open data revolution". One of the newest apps to appear using government data is an iPhone all called Your Taxi Meter, which uses live data from local councils to find out from a car's registration number whether it is a licensed taxi - so that would-be passengers can check on it before they get in.
OpenRefine Every open spending data site in the US ranked and listed | News The Follow the Money 2012 report has this week revealed the good news that more US states are being open about their public spending by publishing their transactions on their websites. It has also exposed the states of Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Montana and Wyoming that are keeping their finances behind a password protected wall or are just not publishing at all. A network of US Public Interest Research Groups (US PIRGs) which produced the report, revealed that 46 states now "allow residents to access checkbook-level information about government expenditures online". The checkbook means a digital copy of who receives state money, how much, and for what purpose. In the UK councils have been publishing lists of their spending over £500 for just over a year. The government site Direct Gov provides a service to look up your local council's spending data. This is just the UK way. The value of good transparency is illustrated by some nice examples in the report. Data summary Download the data
Hacks/Hackers » Journalism x Technology Witness Confident: can a street violence map encourage more victims to report crime? | News Today a new map of crime called Street Violence is launched by the charity Witness Confident. Unlike Police.uk which displays official statistics of crimes at street level, the Street Violence map will display accounts of street robberies and attacks from witnesses and victims. The motivation for this, as Witness Confident explain, is that a signficant portion of violent crime is not reported, so making it easier and quicker to share information about crime can help to reduce these lost cases. The map also serves as a report to help people learn about how crime is tackled in their area. Perhaps the most important feature of the Street Violence map is the way it's connected to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) through a form that will essentially email the Police as if you were using their own email service. Witness Confident intend that victims of street robberies and attacks use this facility to report crime to the MPS. In addition, the Met stated this weekend: So what do you think?