The official Tumblr of Fast Company.
The London Underground commemorated its 150th anniversary with a quintet of maps made of Lego. But the creative display was built for more than fun and games. It shows how the network—the world’s first underground passenger railway—has evolved in a century and a half.
[Images: Instagram Users Krey47]
After Apple booted Google Maps from iOS last year, Daniel Graf led the development of a beautiful, refreshed mapping experience that shot to number one in the iTunes store and kicked Apple’s ass on its own turf. Here’s how Graf made it happen—in his own words:
“We have a very successful Android version of Google Maps, so the easiest thing to do was to say, this is super-successful, users love it, so why don’t we just port it over to iOS? But I wanted to challenge the team. While the Android version is a great product, you can also tell it’s been around for a while. You have to access everything via menus—it’s not really best-use-case driven anymore. I said, let’s take a step back—what if we could start from scratch and forget anything we’ve ever done? We have the foundation—the Google data, the mapping data, the local business data, the imagery, the navigation algorithms—it’s a dream to start with.”
Floating Sheep’s map charting hate tweets, which allows you to search on several flavors of hate, is a creative use of data and mapping to raise awareness.
Where North Korea’s Maybe-Nuclear Missiles Could Land, Visualized
Check out these maps from CNN, which assess the range of six North Korean missiles, and visualized just where those weapons could strike should president Kim Jung-un authorize an attack.
This spring, bellicose nation North Korea has gotten the world’s attention with its amped-up aggression toward the United States and South Korea. The government said that “powerful striking means” have been readied for action, and the U.S. and South Korean governments anticipate more missile tests soon. And the New York Times just reported “with ‘moderate confidence,’ that the country has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.”
For South Korea, it’s a near throwback to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the threat of a nuclear-armed neighbor inspired widespread panic. For the U.S., the threat feels a bit more distant and ambiguous: Are they posturing? Do they just want attention? Or do we need to take them seriously?
For the past decade or so, NORAD has used Google Maps as the brains behind its Santa Tracker. But this year, Google has been replaced by Bing.
America’s Most Popular Music Scenes
[Images: MPI’s Zara Matheson]
Click here for our picks: the best Frankenstorm maps and visualizations!
Google Maps traffic displays can be handy in a pinch. But what if you’re less interested in the commute on a particular street than getting around in a particular area? It can take months to get a temporal lay of the land when driving around a new city. Could technology fill the gaps until instincts take over?
Trulia’s New Maps Show Your Commute Time From Your New House
![Ingenious Infographic: U.S. Highways, Mapped Like A Subway System
The graphic language of the London Underground map is so iconic that “[insert any network or process here] visualized as a London Underground map” has become a design cliché. So why are we writing about the latest iteration, a Tube-style map of U.S. interstate highways, created by Cameron Booth? Because, clichéd or not, visualizing this particular system in this way is actually damned useful.
See more of the infographic->](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz6jfgpDct1qzt7h7o1_500.jpg)
Ingenious Infographic: U.S. Highways, Mapped Like A Subway System
The graphic language of the London Underground map is so iconic that “[insert any network or process here] visualized as a London Underground map” has become a design cliché. So why are we writing about the latest iteration, a Tube-style map of U.S. interstate highways, created by Cameron Booth? Because, clichéd or not, visualizing this particular system in this way is actually damned useful.
Urbanflow: A City’s Information, Visualized In Real Time
Combining a map, tourist information, and data about the city’s services, a new system is making Helsinki truly transparent.
Want to know where the worst pollution is near you? With some help from Microsoft, new maps let European users see all that data in a visual form.
Eye On Earth: Mapping The Planet’s Air, Water, And Noise Pollution
DigitalGlobe, the firm that provides much of the imagery for Google Earth, is launching a next-generation satellite in 2014. However, the super-sharp images of the WorldView-3 aren’t for Google and Bing Maps: They’re going straight to the military and intelligence agencies.
Our Massive Impact On Earth, In Glowing Maps
