Looking down from above

I came across this interesting new social geographic visualization company Social Explorer. Of course, their site is "still in BETA..." as it is very much a work in progress. They are using Flash as the front-end interface and splicing the data with the huge vats of information from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) . This is really an exciting development.

Here is where i zoomed in to a portion of the map of USA
to look at people living above and below the poverty line, 1999-2001 data.



"Social Explorer is dedicated to providing demographic information in an easily understood format,data maps. We serve hundreds of interactive data maps of United States.

Here, you can visually analyze and understand the demography of the U.S., explore your neighborhood and learn about the people that live around you.

Social Explorer is an organization based in New York City. Our objective is to help Visually Analyze and Understand the Demography of the U.S. through the use of Interactive Maps. Our primary functions include Demographic Data Analysis, Interactive Map Design and Software Development.

One of our main goals is to show demographic change that's occured in the U.S. since 1870 till present. We maintain a collection of interactive maps that visually show some of the available Census Data running back to 1870s.

We have over 60 years of combined experince in data analysis. With Dr. Beveridge at helm, we have produced statistical information and themathic maps to Prudential Financial Services, New York Times, Time Warner, and many other entities."

Citizens are gaining more "god's eye/satellite/military intelligence" vision. We can peer down at the people living next to us and further away. Google Maps is amazing at this too. Hopefully this will help to increase awareness and acceptance. But as we know, it all depends on the way that people are perceiving this information. These maps can go a long way in altering our perception to be more inclusive. Inshallah!

Thanks to Netimperative for alerting me on this news. Go read what they post on this subject here
On the theme of the present, LondonConnect launched April 25th, a city portal for locals and visitors to the capital organized in a simple, user-friendly way. It is intended to be upgraded in phases and is here to stay. Wonderful new addition to help us navigate through the unwieldly complications that huge cities present. Go take a test drive and report back to Lifesized to let me know what you thought.

And finally a interesting podcast by Benjamin Walker on Philip K. Dick