We came across a nifty little tool this week that creates an infographic from your Foursquare data.
Built by Stormpixel Studios at a Foursquare Hack Day event in February, the tool creates a simple infographic that displays a world map; your checkin, network and tip counts; your badges; your checkins by category, such as travel, or arts and entertainment; the number of coffees you have consumed and more. (My coffee count says one. Somehow it must have known all those Starbucks checkins were for tea and bananas.)
QR code-focused startup JumpScan was kind enough to send along a graphically organized representation of some data they’ve gathered about QR codes — who’s scanning them, what kinds of devices they’re using and what brands are running QR code campaigns.
Cooler still, you can scan every QR code in this infographic to get more info, making this Mashable‘s first interactive infographic. So have your smartphones at the ready, and click the image below if you need to see a larger version.
When you’re done clicking, scanning and learning, riddle us this in the comments section: When was the last time you scanned a QR code, and what did you get out of it?
Graphic designer Eileen Lopez has put together this very helpful chart, which shows the best-selling games of all time in the United States. All of them. From the 2600 to the 360, Space Battle to Smash Bros.More »
America, the champion of democracy and freedom, actually has more Internet censorship than some countries in Africa and South America according to an infographic based on Internet censorship research conducted by the OpenNet Initiative.
The U.S. and Canada are listed as “some censorship” along with much of Western Europe. Russia and Australia ranked lower as “Under Surveillance,” while China and parts of the Middle East ranked at the bottom for “Pervasive Censorship.”
As for what kinds of content is censored, the research found that “blogs” were the most censored content at 20% while “militant groups” only ranked at 1%. Surprisingly, locally focussed NGOs tied for third-most censored at 9%.
Even though the research from OpenNet comes from top minds at at The Citizen Lab, University of Toronto, and the Harvard Law School, it raises some inherent problems with defining “censorship.” For example, screening out child pornography and illegal file sharing technically registers as “censorship” even though most people wouldn’t consider that a human rights offense. It would be naive, however, to assume that all that surveillance was well-intentioned, especially when applied in countries that restrict social networking sites or limit access to the Internet.
Perhaps that’s why locally focussed NGO’s sometimes rank so highly in types of censored content. Quashing protest or opposition is much different from removing illegal content. Even still, it’s strange to see local efforts so outrank international NGOs, regional NGOs and even independent media.
It’s also possible that the results could be skewed by the quantity of people on the Internet and their available bandwidth.
The OpenNet research and the infographic (created by a Design & Technology MFA candidate at Parsons, NY) is imperfect. Still, it offers an interesting glimpse at how “developed” countries stack up against the rest of the world and what content — if any — is targeted for censorship. You can sign a petition against censorship at the bottom of the graphics page.
Let us know your thoughts and conclusions in the comments below.
The title may be a bit misguiding as the infographic only shows Western typography but it seems that the most popular typefaces were invented either in Europe or North America. The poster includes information for each typefaces such as the year it was made, the location and the typographer. Luckily for the symmetry of the visualization, the typefaces are nearly split 50/50 between Europe and the United States. For all typography aficionados, Typefaces of the World will be available as a poster.
Shelby White is a Seattle based Designer & Photographer. He blogs at Wanken.com, Designspiration and sometimes contributes to the fabulous ISO50 blog.
Shelby White is a Seattle based Designer & Photographer. He blogs at