The Maps of the Week

Dinosaur Pictures' visualization of the history of the world is one of my favorite maps of the year so far. This interactive 3d globe shows how the Earth has progressed in the last 600 million years, from the dawn of multi-cellular life right up to the start of the digital age.

What Did the World Look Like allows you to view a 3d globe visualization of how the Earth has transformed throughout the history of life on this planet. The site includes two menus, which allow you to change the era visualized on the interactive 3d globe. The menu at the top of the page allows you to select an era by age. The menu at the top right allows you to select a view based on the stages of life on Earth & geologic period.


I was also impressed this week with the Art of Hearing, which uses panoramic sound with Street View images in order to test your hearing.

The Art of Hearing places you within three obscured Street View panoramas. Your task in each Street View is to identify the source of the hidden sound (a waterfall, bird song & a ringing telephone). You are given a score in each Street View based on how close you guessed to the source of the sound.

At the end of the test your hearing is assessed based on your guesses, your age and gender. Do very badly and you just might be advised to undertake a proper hearing test.


The most shared map on social media this week was probably Startups Streets San Francisco, a CartoDB road map of the Californian city in which all the roads are renamed for the city's largest startup companies.

The map isn't based on the location of San Francisco's startup companies but on the level of funding of each company. The companies with the biggest funding are assigned to the biggest San Francisco streets and the funding levels are based on data from Crunchbase.


Another map from CartoDB visualizes the same data in an entirely different way. The Startup Buildings of San Francisco shows the heights of buildings based on the level of each startup's funding.

The colors on the map relate to the number of startup companies residing in the building. The darker the color the less companies in the building. Therefore the darker, taller buildings are home to the most well funded companies. You can click on individual buildings to view the companies residing there.