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Valve has released some of the first footage of the new Portal 2 at E3 this week, demonstrating some of the new characters and tricks you’ll get to try as GlaDOS rises again the rebuilds the lab.

Graphics valve, video game

Cigarette Company Statistics

Internet Speed

Wine Serving Temperatures

Energy Savings of Low Hanging Fruit

The shocking disparities of labor cost

New Businesses – a State by State look

Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list

Cigarette Company Statistics | TermLifeInsurance .org.

infographics

Visual Loop.

infographics

Next time you want to quickly and easily throw a heatmap over a Google Map, you might want to check out “heatMAP” from Differential Enterprises.  A simple tool that can pull lat/long and value data from any HTTP Post request (and many other sources), it makes the entire process trivial.

The user (or web developer) has control over

• blending level (local vs. large-region smoothing)
• granularity of the color cells
• other useful display parameters.

It’s still in it’s infancy but pretty functional. Works best in FireFox, but they’re working on better IE support.

via Differential Enterprises – Gmap “heatMAP” color contour overlay.

Science google, heatmap, Website

Simple, clear, and perfect for printing out and hanging somewhere useful.

Wine Serving Temperatures [Infographic]. via VisualLoop

infographics

This week’s recommended resource should appeal to artists, afficionados, and practicing experts alike.  Toby Segaran and Jeff Hammerbacher’s “Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions” takes stories from some of the biggest names in data visualization and compiles them into a list of success stories, lessons learned, and tutorials on some of the best visualizations on the net.

In this insightful book, you’ll learn from the best data practitioners in the field just how wide-ranging — and beautiful — working with data can be. Join 39 contributors as they explain how they developed simple and elegant solutions on projects ranging from the Mars lander to a Radiohead video.

With Beautiful Data, you will:

• Explore the opportunities and challenges involved in working with the vast number of datasets made available by the Web
• Learn how to visualize trends in urban crime, using maps and data mashups
• Discover the challenges of designing a data processing system that works within the constraints of space travel
• Learn how crowdsourcing and transparency have combined to advance the state of drug research
• Understand how new data can automatically trigger alerts when it matches or overlaps pre-existing data
• Learn about the massive infrastructure required to create, capture, and process DNA data

That’s only small sample of what you’ll find in Beautiful Data. For anyone who handles data, this is a truly fascinating book. Contributors include:

• Nathan Yau
• Jonathan Follett and Matt Holm
• J.M. Hughes
• Raghu Ramakrishnan, Brian Cooper, and Utkarsh Srivastava
• Jeff Hammerbacher
• Jason Dykes and Jo Wood
• Jeff Jonas and Lisa Sokol
• Jud Valeski
• Alon Halevy and Jayant Madhavan
• Aaron Koblin with Valdean Klump
• and many many more….

This book any many others is available in the VizWorld Store.

Science resource of the week

Energy Savings of Low Hanging Fruit [Infographic] « WellHome.

infographics

Cheetah3D has just release a new version, version 5.5, that adds several new effects like instancing and and improved script support, but the big feature in this version is the new Particle System.

Now you can create not only fountains and waterfalls but also complex motion graphics and scene from nature, like swaying forests. Since the particle system supports instancing, it is now possible to render extremely complex scenes like jungles or hordes of aliens, something which would have previously resulted in hundreds of millions- or even billions- of polygons.

Since the new particle system is also scriptable, you can even create your own custom particle systems via an easy-to-learn Javascript API.

Available now for $149, or a $69 upgrade.

via Mac 3D Software for Modelling, Rendering and Animation – Cheetah3D, Latest News.

Graphics cheetah3d, software

If you’ve been dipping your toes in the Stereoscopic Video pool but find it a bit daunting, then perhaps you should consider enroling in oen of 3DFilmFactory’s new stereoscopic training classes.

3D Film Factory (Los Angeles, USA) is now offering hands-on, comprehensive programs aimed at stereographers, cinematographers and 3D production professionals. Participants will spend 2 full days of hands-on shooting and editing in 3D under the direction of a highly-trained, veteran stereographer.

All equipment is provided for you during the training, and the first class is July 10-11th.

via 3D shooting training program in L.A..

Graphics, Hardware 3dfilmfactory, stereoscopic, training