i202 Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

In his legendary TED talk, Hans Rosling, a global health researcher from Sweden, presents a tool called "Gapminder" which uses a simple and intuitive visualization of complex macroecononmic information to clearly point out particular global trends. This tool (available online) has access to a bulk of information about almost all countries in the world regarding GDP, HIV, CO2 emissions etc. starting from 1800. Rosling successfully bridges the gap by providing an interactive interface that allows the exporation of vast data sets in an intuitive and entertaining way.

 TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Online Service: http://www.gapminder.org

(there is another TED talk of him in which he gives an update about his work. However, it is basically the same)