Google's recent acquisition of Gapminder's Trendalyzer software only highlights the importance of data visualization. Gapminder co-founder, Hans Rosling, of course, is well known for his 2006 TED presentation where he showed how data can be presented in a more clear and visually arresting way (and he's becoming famous for being a sword swallower as well!).
Google's Marissa Mayer, says that, "like Google, Gapminder strives to make information more useful, and Trendalyzer will improve any function or application in which data might be better visualized...We hope (to make) it freely available to any and all users capable of thinking outside the X and Y axes".
Google has already made available a beta-version, here.
I guess this acquisition makes a strong case for the importance of "information aesthetics" nowadays. As we get overloaded with information, "the problem", as Mr. Rosling aptly said in his TED presentation, "is not ignorance, it is preconceived ideas".
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