Tableau took some heat when they unexpectedly took down the publicly-created visualizations of the WikiLeaks cables. Realizing that perhaps that wasn’t the best solution to the touchy subject, they’ve spent some time working on a better solution. Today, they’ve announced a new Data Policy and Advisory Board, hopefully to prevent this from happening again.
The two main changes to our data policy are:
1. We are establishing a more formal complaint process, by which people can challenge data posted to Tableau Public. By outlining specific circumstances in which we will consider taking down data, the new policy puts complaints through a higher level of scrutiny than before.
2. We’re more closely aligning our policy with the accepted guidelines for free speech on the internet. You can access our full data policy for more detail at www.tableausoftware.com/public/data-policy.
The advisory board contains people from media, technology, publishing, and communications around the world, offering a nice balanced mix of expertise.
As public data becomes a bigger driver, and more companies find themselves playing the role of “data brokers” and “Visualization brokers”, we’re going to hear more and more about these types of scenarios. What do you think? Did Tableau do a good job? Could they have done more?
After experiencing their warmest year on record, many of the southern and western areas of Greenland also had the longest number of days that snow melted. The snow melt in 2010 lasted lasted 50 days longer than the 1979-2009 average snow melt normally does. In the image to the right, areas in orange and red experienced longer snow melt days while areas in light blue had fewer snow melt days. Good luck finding the light blue areas. Unless you click on the image to make it larger, I doubt that you will be able to see them. Since the light blue areas occur at the very edges of the data, and since they occur right next to some of the highest snow melt days, I suspect that they may be artifacts in the data, and not true values.
Since this is fresh water that is melting, the seas around Greenland have a slight decrease in salinity. The melting of this snow may also increase global sea levels, although scientists do not know to what extent this will occur. Some scientists think that it could increase the global sea level by up to 0.6 meters or about two feet.
This image was assembled from microwave data from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) of the Defense Meteorological Satellites Program. Snow and ice emit microwaves, but the signal is different for wet, melting snow than for dry. Marco Tedesco, a professor at the City College of New York, uses this difference to chart the number of days that snow is melting every year. This image above shows 2010 compared to the average number of melt days per year between 1979 and 2009.
Two students from the Terrassa School of Engineering have designed, as part of a final degree project, an augmented reality chess learning system. Using special AR markers instead of the traditional chess pieces, a computer watches the board overlays the correct pieces in the computerized display, offering guidance and advice to new players. That doesn’t sound all that interesting, until you realize the application to other special chess niche players.
The learning tool also incorporates a move-tracking program called Chess Recognition: from the images captured by the webcam, the system instantly recognises and analyses every movement of every piece and can act as a referee, identify illegal moves and provide the players with an audible description of the game status. According to Ivan Paquico and Cristina Palmero, this feature could be very useful for players with visual impairment — who have their own federation and, until now, have had to play with specially adapted boards and pieces — and for clubs and federations, tournament organisers and enthusiasts of all levels.
Imagine full regulation-style chess between blind and seeing opponents, aided by the computer.
Comcast is launching a new 3-D channel called Xfinity 3D. This channel will started yesterday, on February 20. Xfinity 3D will have concerts, sports events, movies and original programming, all in 3-D. The new 3-D channel kicked off yesterday with NHL hockey game featuring the Montreal Canadiens and the Calgary Flames. (The Flames won 4-0 in an outdoor stadium with a -8.6 degrees Celsius (16.5 Fahrenheit) temperature, and that does not factor in wind chill!)
Small businesses play a key role in most economies, and in the U.S. it’s not different, as we can see in Fee Fighters‘ infographic, even despite the varying corporate tax rates they face, showed here by Turbo Tax. Designer Paul Horn brings us a look at the country’s financial responsibility, and the history behind the Union’s is told by American Majority. Finishing today’s selection, The Wall Street Journal presents us with an overlook of the international trade partners of America.
Friday’s here, and for those who are lucky enough to go on a weekend trip with the family or friends, Drive Steady prepared some Winter driving tips for your safety, in case you want to try some of America’s best roads for sports cars – a list compiled by Car Insurance. Fruit Machine brings us Gambling’s biggest losers, and to close the week, we checked out the best airports in the World, according to eDreams, and take a look back at the most profitable concert tours of 2010, from GOOD.
If you pass near the Arizona State University campus next week, you might want to pop in to check out an interesting presentation from DreamWorks Animation scientist Ron Henderson.
“Art-Directed Reality: Tools for Animation and Visual Effects,” will be presented by Ron Henderson, manager of the FX Tools group, at 12:15 p.m. Feb. 25 in the Global Institute of Sustainability, Room 101 (GIOS 101). The talk will cover how a large animation studio works, infrastructure, and staffing and approach to tool development. A case study will be presented on the challenges he and his team face in creating great tools for animation and visual effects.
He’s not just a VFX Junkie either, he holds a doctorate from Princeton in Mechanical and Aerospace engineering, and was a senior scientist at Caltech. Most recently, he helped build some of the tools in MegaMind and How To Train Your Dragon.
Both Wired and the NYTimes have small galleries up of the winning entries in the 2010 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. A bit heavy on the biological visualizations this year (several virus entries and such), the resulting pictures and videos truly are beautiful to behold.
Qualcomm has announced the winners of their 2010 Augmented Reality Developer Challenge. A clever way to push usage of their new AR SDK, I see some pretty clever uses of the technology for some fun little games.
Winning Applications
1st Place – $125,000 – Paparazzi by Paulius Liekis and Arminas Didžiokas (Lithuania)
An interactive game where the player becomes a virtual paparazzo and sneaks pictures of a vain celebrity before he gets agitated and attacks the photographer
2nd Place – $50,000 – Inch High Stunt Guy by Defiant Development Pty Ltd. (Australia)
A game where the player arranges various obstacles to enable a stuntman to successfully jump his motorcycle through a hoop
3rd Place – $25,000 – Danger Copter by Alex Beachum, Jonghwa Kim, Jason Mathias, Kedar Reddy and Evan Sforza (USA)
A gaming adventure where the player becomes a helicopter pilot who maneuvers a water-spouting chopper to extinguish fires and rescue people from danger
Congratulations to all the winners! Check out the “sizzle reel” below which shows some of the better entries.
Tableau took some heat when they unexpectedly took down the publicly-created visualizations of the WikiLeaks cables. Realizing that perhaps that wasn’t the best solution to the touchy subject, they’ve spent some time working on a better solution. Today, they’ve announced a new Data Policy and Advisory Board, hopefully to prevent this from happening again.
Two students from the Terrassa School of Engineering have designed, as part of a final degree project, an augmented reality chess learning system. Using special AR markers instead of the traditional chess pieces, a computer watches the board overlays the correct pieces in the computerized display, offering guidance and advice to new players. That doesn’t sound all that interesting, until you realize the application to other special chess niche players.
Small businesses play a key role in most economies, and in the U.S. it’s not different, as we can see in 
Friday’s here, and for those who are lucky enough to go on a weekend trip with the family or friends, 
If you pass near the Arizona State University campus next week, you might want to pop in to check out an interesting presentation from DreamWorks Animation scientist Ron Henderson.
Both Wired and the NYTimes have small galleries up of the winning entries in the 2010 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. A bit heavy on the biological visualizations this year (several virus entries and such), the resulting pictures and videos truly are beautiful to behold.
VizWorld.com 
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