Infographic of the Day

Infographic of the Day: Frog Design Makes Twitter Activity Gorgeous

Infographic of the Day: Frog Design Makes Twitter Activity Gorgeous

We've featured a slew of Twitter visualizations, but you'll probably agree that this is the most beautiful and hypnotizing.

Designed by Frog's office in Milan, A World of Tweets simply visualizes real-time Twitter activity around the world. Tweets are shown as raindrops falling across the globe. But what's more, the longer you let the visualization run, the better it gets -- the rain drops add up, building you a real time heatmap of worldwide Twitter activity.

To Prevent Disease, MIT Students Create For-Profit Toilet Franchises

To Prevent Disease, MIT Students Create For-Profit Toilet Franchises

According to MIT, some 2.6 billion people in the world don't have access to adequate sanitation--and 10 million of them live in Kenya's impoverished slums. So-called pit latrines -- four walls around a hole in the ground -- actually improve matters immensely, but since they're built by donation-funded aid organizations, the community has little incentive to use or maintain them, and they often fall into disrepair.

Poland Unveils BMW-Designed Subway Cars Which Are 98% Recyclable

Poland Unveils BMW-Designed Subway Cars Which Are 98% Recyclable

It's one thing to brag about your public transit system's environmental bona fides. But the Polish capital city of Warsaw decided to rub it in everyone's faces by having their new Inspiro subway cars designed by BMW too.

The Inspiro system from Siemens and BMW Group DesignworksUSA will go online in the Metro Warszawskie in 2012, boasting a number of environmentally sensitive designs.

[Check out the tree-like handholds, and the wide interior spaces]

Scott Wilson’s iPod Nano Watch Breaks Kickstarter Records, Raises Nearly $1 Million

Scott Wilson’s iPod Nano Watch Breaks Kickstarter Records, Raises Nearly $1 Million

Last Monday, we had a breaking exclusive on a lovely new design by Scott Wilson: The TikTok and LunaTik wristbands, which transform the iPod Nano into a wristwatch. Initially, Wilson was hoping to raise $15,000 in 30 days, to get the watchbands into production. But guess what? The watch has become a bona fide Internet sensation, raising nearly $400,000 on Kickstarter in just a week, from over 5,000 backers -- and $180,000 in the first three days alone.