INTRODUCING KEPLER.GL, UBER’S OPEN SOURCE GEOSPATIAL TOOLBOX
Created by Uber’s Visualization team, kepler.gl is an open source data agnostic, high-performance web-based application for large-scale geospatial visualizations. At Uber, we leverage data visualization to better understand how our cities move. Our solutions enable us to embed maps with rich location data, render millions of GPS points in the blink of an eye, and, most importantly, derive insights from them. No matter the frameworks or tools used, creating interactive visualizations follows a similar process: data collection, data processing, visualization exploration via web-based tools such as QGIS, Carto, and Mapbox Studio, and then porting the visualizations into Javascript with React, D3.js, and Three.js to build prototypes. Not only is the process tedious, but it may or may not reap useful visualizations. In many cases, there are more visualization ideas than there is time and people to make them.
Read moreRECONCILING GRAPHQL AND THRIFT AT AIRBNB
For several years, we had a few eager advocates for GraphQL at Airbnb, but the project never quite made it through the gates largely due to the perception that “GraphQL the Religion”—a worldview where all data is a graph all the way down—would be incompatible with our particular services-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy, which defines service-to-service communication using Thrift Interface Definition Language (IDL) and delivers data to clients via dedicated Presentation Services. We recently reframed a case for “GraphQL the API Layer.” Embracing how GraphQL could complement rather than compete with our Presentation Services, it found much more traction.
Read moreEVIDENCE FOUND FOR A NEW FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLE
An experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago has detected far more electron neutrinos than predicted — a possible harbinger of a revolutionary new elementary particle called the sterile neutrino, though many physicists remain skeptical. Inside the MiniBooNE tank, photodetectors capture the light created when a neutrino interacts with an atomic nucleus. Physicists are both thrilled and baffled by a new report from a neutrino experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago.
Read moreTRACKING CUBESATS FOR $25
CubeSats are tiny satellites which tag along as secondary payloads during launches. They have to weigh in at under 1.33 kg, and are often built at low cost. There’s even open source designs for these little spacecrafts. Over 800 CubeSats have been launched over the last few years, with many more launches scheduled in the near future. This homebrew antenna is connected into a RTL-SDR dongle. The dongle picks up the beacon signals sent by the satellites and provides the data to a PC.
Read moreDRONE DELIVERY BECOMES A REALITY IN REMOTE PACIFIC ISLANDS
Currently, health workers in Vanuatu often hike over mountains to deliver vaccines–but drones can fly over them. This September, delivery drones will begin to fly the friendly skies of Vanuatu. And this isn’t a one-shot demonstration, like many of the stunts we’ve seen from the likes of Amazon and Google. This is an attempt to make drones part of the medical infrastructure. The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, a string of 83 volcanic islands spread over 1600 kilometers (995 miles), has just issued a “request for tender” to drone companies around the world. The companies are invited to submit bids for bringing vaccines to scattered hospitals and health clinics on three islands.
Read moreTOXIC CHEMICALS FROM E-WASTE ARE WORKING THEIR WAY INTO OUR FOOD PACKAGING
Black plastics are notoriously hard to recycle, which has led to the introduction of toxic chemicals into consumer products using recycled black plastics. Each year the world generates about 50 tons of e-waste—electronic items that are trashed because they are no longer useful or considered outdated—but only about 13 percent of this e-waste is recycled. This is a huge problem in itself, since most of this e-waste ends up in landfills in developing countries where the toxic chemicals found in the waste leach into local water supplies and poison the environment.
Read moreMICROSOFT IS NOW WORTH MORE THAN ALPHABET
Well done, Clippy: Microsoft has passed Google in market valuation for the first time in three years,CNBC reports. Microsoft is now valued at $753 billion, while Alphabet (Google’s parent company) is valued at $739 billion. While Amazon and Apple still top this particular list, Microsoft now rounds out the top three and gosh it just feels so good when rich people become richer.
Read moreCHINA OVERTAKES U.S. FOR HEALTHY LIFESPAN: WHO DATA
GENEVA (Reuters) – China has overtaken the United States in healthy life expectancy at birth for the first time, according to World Health Organization data. Chinese newborns can look forward to 68.7 years of healthy life ahead of them, compared with 68.5 years for American babies, the data – which relates to 2016 – showed. American newborns can still expect to live longer overall – 78.5 years compared to China’s 76.4 – but the last 10 years of American lives are not expected to be healthy.
Read moreAI WINTER IS WELL ON ITS WAY
Deep learning has been at the forefront of the so called AI revolution for quite a few years now, and many people had believed that it is the silver bullet that will take us to the world of wonders of technological singularity (general AI). Many bets were made in 2014, 2015 and 2016 when still new boundaries were pushed, such as the Alpha Go etc. Companies such as Tesla were announcing through the mouths of their CEO’s that fully self driving car was very close, to the point that Tesla even started selling that option to customers [to be enabled by future software update].
Read moreCHINA JUST INVITED THE WORLD TO ITS SPACE STATION
At a time when NASA and its partners are trying to decide how long to maintain the International Space Station, China has taken the significant step of inviting the world to its planned orbital station. The China Space Station, or CSS, could become operational as soon as 2022. Such an announcement represents potentially the greatest soft power threat of the last six decades to US and Russian dominance of spaceflight.
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