I love data visualization stuff and this video is a very cool way of looking at a LOT of data. 

I noticed a couple of things about this presentation that skewed the data a little bit.  Did you notice that the Y axis doesn’t start at zero?  Did you notice that the X axis is logarithmic while the Y axis is linear? The overall effect is to make wealth appear to have a greater impact on lifespan than it does. 

In spite of the skewing of the data, it’s still a very cool visualization!

In the software world we like to “demo” new features whenever we write them.  Sometimes we do live demonstrations, other times we record them and post the videos for end users to see. 

Back in 1968 (before I was born just do you know) they not only had computers and software but they actually did demos.  Here are some videos of one of the coolest demos of all time, Doug Engelbart’s “Mother of all Demos”. 

At the link above you can see several videos, including one of the first computer mousewhich Engelbart invented. In the video he actually apologizes for calling it a mouse.  He can’t remember why they started calling it that but to this day we still call it a mouse!

Towards the end of this video clip you can see the chorded keypad that he also invented.  It never took off like the mouse, partly because you really need to understand binary numbers in order to use it effectively!

Also you can see a video of real-time collaboration (Google Wave wasn’t exactly a new concept.)

Pretty amazing stuff considering it was 1968!

Today must be MIT day… I keep coming across cool stuff from them!

These days everyone is familiar with barcodes but I remember as a kid being fascinated by these new things that could be read with lasers.  Recently I have been working on an application that is driven by reading barcodes and it’s been a lot of fun to work on.

MIT has an idea of what barcodes in the future might look like.  Rather than having to have special lasers to read the codes, they use ordinary cameras to read the “bokodes”. 

Read about their research here: Barcodes for the Rest of Us

or watch a demo here: Bokode Video