Consider the following: Thousands of satellites are now observing every facet of our planet Around three-quarters of Earth’s land surface is now influenced by human activity Aircraft-based LIDAR mapping is creating new models of the physical world in staggering detail But, despite all of these impressive advances, our collective knowledge of the ocean floor still has some surprising blind spots. Today’s unique map from cartographer Andrew Douglas-Clifford (aka The Map Kiwi) focuses on ocean territory instead of land, highlighting the vast areas of the ocean floor that remain unmapped....

As people moved in and out of certain areas for both lifestyle and economic reasons, which U.S. state populations fluctuated the most? Drawing from the latest Census Bureau data, we look at how each state’s resident populations evolved over the past decade. But first, a blast from the past. Historical Trends: U.S. Population Since the 1930s Population growth trends in the U.S. have been closely tied to the economic ebbs and flows experienced by the nation....

In a state like California or Texas, these companies tend to be gargantuan in size even from a national or international perspective. Apple ($216 billion) and ExxonMobil ($226 billion) are two prime examples, and they are obviously giant companies by almost any measure. In other states, the largest company by revenue may fly more under the radar, or be known only on a regional basis. Sometimes these are actually the most interesting types of companies to learn more about....

The first of which is the amount of money a person earns, and the other is what they choose to spend their money on. The latter is influenced by the cost of living in the city where they reside—an ever-changing metric that is driven by a wide variety of factors, such as currency, population growth, or external market movements. Today’s graphic visualizes the findings from the 2020 Worldwide Cost of Living report and uses data from 133 cities to rank the most expensive cities in the world....

Because of this, in-home data consumption in the U.S. surged. To provide some perspective, this graphic shows the average monthly data usage in 2020 compared to 2019. Percent Change by Month At the start of 2020, data consumption was up 16% compared to 2019, driven largely by streaming boxes and smart TVs. But by March (when the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic) usage had spiked, with a 28% increase compared to the year prior....

Order From Chaos: How Big Data Will Change the World Harnessing the exponential surge in data creates big opportunities. Thanks to Purefunds Big Data ETF (BDAT) for helping us put this together. IBM estimates that each day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created or replicated. That’s the equivalent of a million hard drives filling up with data every hour. The current volume of data created is substantial: it is so much that 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last two years....

Since March of this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of people to physically distance themselves from others, yet many feel closer to their loved ones than ever before. When it comes to brands, consumers have forged relationships that could be just as meaningful. In fact, consumers demonstrated a 23% increase in the number of brands they have an emotional connection with—so what does this mean for brands? The graphic above highlights data from MBLM’s Brand Intimacy COVID Study which measures how emotionally connected consumers in the U....

During times of uncertainty though, we’re even more eager to predict what’s to come. To satisfy this demand, thousands of prognosticators share their views publicly as one year closes and another begins. In hindsight, we see varying levels of success at predicting the future. In truth, experts are merely guessing at what will happen over the coming year. In 2020, almost nobody had a pandemic on their bingo card. In 2021, NFTs completely flew under the radar of experts, and nobody saw a container ship get lodged in the Suez Canal in their crystal ball....

While it’s hard to imagine modern life without Google or YouTube, it’s interesting to reflect on how much the web has changed over the last few decades. This animation by Captain Gizmo provides a historical rundown of the most popular websites since 1993, showing how much the internet has evolved since the early ’90s. The Top Websites While the web has changed drastically over the years, the top-ranking websites have remained relatively consistent....

However, this view comes with the benefit of plenty of hindsight – and even Elon Musk would tell you that it wasn’t always obvious that the company would be around in 2017. There were periods of time when layoffs were rampant, the company’s payroll was covered by credit cards, and Tesla was on the brink of bankruptcy. Rise of Tesla: The History (Part 1 of 3) Today’s massive infographic comes to us from Global Energy Metals, and it is the first part of our three-part Rise of Tesla Series, which will soon be a definitive source for everything you ever wanted to know about the company....

The 3 Types of Quantum Computers and Their Applications It’s an exciting time in computing. Just days ago, Google’s AlphaGo AI took an insurmountable lead in the 3,000 year-old game of Go against the reigning world champion, Lee Sedol. In a five-game series, the score is now 3-1 for the machine with one game left on March 15, 2016 in Seoul, South Korea. While IBM’s Deep Blue beat reigning chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 by using brute force, Go is a game with more possible moves than atoms in the known universe (literally)....

That will make it bigger than annual global sales for raw metals like nickel and silver put together. It would be a size that even exceeds the North American pork market. But while almost everyone has a sense of the basic mechanics of mining or ranching, knowledge around the essentials of cannabis are understandably not as well ingrained in our culture. Cannabis Plants 101 Today’s infographic comes to us from The Green Organic Dutchman, and it breaks down the anatomy of a cannabis plant, the differences between types of plants, and also the basics around cannabis cultivation....

As our team put together the inaugural Generational Power Index (GPI), which looks at power dynamics across generations in the U.S., we started wondering which generation spent the most on political campaigns and lobbying. Here’s what we found out. Old Money Of top spenders in the U.S., the Silent Generation (age 76+) and Baby Boomers (age 57-75) both sit at the top of the ranking. In 2020, 55% of the biggest campaign donations in the U....

Since this tipping point, pro sports has thrived around the world, and the business of sports has evolved into a multi-billion dollar ecosystem for teams, leagues, players, merchandisers, sponsors, broadcasters, and event spaces. Today, this evolution still continues – and it is being driven by the emergence of eSports (electronic sports), an exciting frontier for fans and business alike. eSports Extravaganza Today’s chart breaks down the eSports boom, including data on the sector’s rapid growth, prize pools, and the most valuable eSports companies today....

The two are very much intertwined, however. By the end of 2020, authorities estimate that upwards of 265 million people could be on the brink of starvation globally, almost double the current rate of crisis-level food insecurity. Today’s visualizations use data from the fourth annual Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2020) to demonstrate the growing scale of the current situation, as well as its intense concentration in just 55 countries around the globe....

Total spending on the war, according to data released by the Department of Defense in June 2015, has been $2.74 billion. Of this, $1.83 billion has gone to the Air Force, with the rest being divided between the Army ($274 million), Navy ($438 million) and Special Ops ($204 million). But what is the actual scope of the U.S. Air Force? These three charts tell the story. Make sure to click on the below charts to get the full size versions of each....

A good example of this is the federal tax code, which is now 74,608 pages long. It’s an astonishing 148x longer than it was under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Regulators add new regulations to “solve” problems, but there is much less political will to actually go back and sort through any outdated, ineffective, or convoluted regulations of the past....

We’ve seen users visualize how they spend their disposable income, how they spend their time, and even details of their relationships. Sometimes these charts are fairly personal and uninteresting to the outside world – but other times, they can be quite compelling to a wider audience. Population in Fourths Most recently, in the Data is Beautiful subreddit, the trend has been to use data visualization techniques to split up the maps of countries into four evenly populated areas....

Spending on digital media surpassed television ads in 2017, and now global digital spend is anticipated to top $333 billion this year. As a result, today’s entrepreneurs and small businesses are starting to think about marketing in almost exclusively digital terms – and to have a successful online strategy, it’s important to see the data on what tactics are actually working. Visualizing 100+ Marketing Stats Today’s infographic comes to us from Serpwatch and it highlights seven of the most important digital marketing trends to keep an eye on this year....

The Tesla Model 3 also passed a significant milestone in 2018, becoming the first electric vehicle (EV) to crack the 100,000 sales mark in a single year. The Nissan LEAF and BAIC EC-Series are both likely to surpass the 100,000 this year as well. Although the electric vehicle market didn’t grow as fast as some experts initially projected, it appears that EV sales are finally hitting their stride around the world....