It's time to brush up on those cartography skills. If you've ever relied on Google Maps to find some place and was met with the unfortunate surprise that the map was inaccurate, you can rejoice with the fact that Google Map Maker is now available for U.S. locations. Even if the map tells you to look on the wrong side of the street, although Google Street View has helped address … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2011
Google Video Is Shutting Down and One Team’s Effort To Save the Content
Google had a period, and it still may, where it would try to build something internally to compete with a cool new project and then if it's product couldn't take the lead, it would acquire the competitor. That pretty much seems to be the story between Google Video (launched January 2005) and YouTube (acquired October 2006), respectively. Google Video never really had an … [Read more...]
Winners Announced For Data Viz Challenge – Visualizing How Federal Income Taxes Are Used
Google and Eyebeam created a challenge this year to make it easier for US citizens to understand where their federal income tax dollars go. Today, being the day federal taxes are due, made for a fitting day to reveal the finalists over at www.datavizchallenge.org. Every year, Americans fill out income tax forms and make a payment to the IRS. It’s an important civic duty, but … [Read more...]
Otomata – The Spirograph Of Making Music
Otomata, at EarSlap.com, is a fun, little Flash toy that allows you to create music by inserting living cells into a grid that then follow rules to generate a sequence of music. Since the rules allow the cells to interactive, you can create a random, evolving musical sound. It can make for quite a bit of fun and pleasant sounds. Each alive cell has 4 states: Up, right, down, … [Read more...]
Miro Video Player – VLC Meets iTunes For Internet Videos
Miro, the manager and player for internet videos, torrents, and podcasts, has been around for a while, formerly known as Democracy Player and DTV. Miro comes from the Participatory Culture Foundation which has had another one of its projects, Universal Subtitles, featured on 404 Tech Support before. Miro is a free video downloader, player, and organizer. In a nutshell, it just … [Read more...]