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Tag: Infographic

  • Humanity Has Spent 54,000 Years Playing Temple Run

    I’m pretty hard on the mobile gaming scene. Most of the games on the platform are either trying to be like a console game or they’re just not very fun. One game, however, has constantly kept my interest. Temple Run is super simple and it feels like it was built just for touch devices. People around the world obviously feel the same.

    The guys at Imangi Studios have put together a simple infographic showing some of the milestones that Temple Run has achieved since launching in September of last year. In that time, Temple Run has reached over 100 million downloads. Out of those downloads, 10 billion sessions were played and a collective 54,000 years were spent playing it.

    As is the case with most mobile games, Temple Run enjoys the majority of its market share on iOS with 68 percent of all downloads coming from the device. Coming in second place is Google Play with 30 percent of the downloads. Having just launched, the Amazon App Store version is understandably short on downloads with only two percent.

    If you have yet to try out my personal mobile game of the year, grab Temple Run for either iOS or Android. You may find yourself, like me, playing it for hours to beat the high score.

    54,000 Years Temple Run

  • The Amazing History And Future Of Bioprinting [Infographic]

    I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again – 3D printers are amazing. The technological wonder that allows us to create 3D objects simply by scanning them into a computer has the potential to revolutionize everything. There’s even been talks of how to apply 3D printing to create sustainable food for countries with low food reserves. The most amazing use of 3D printing, however, comes in the form of printing human organs for transplants.

    While 3D printing seems like its out of sci-fi, the technology has actually been around since 1984 when Charles Hull created the first 3D printer. The cost of the technology, however, has kept it out of the public eye for most of the last 20 years. It was only until recently that universities and even regular Joe-types began to be able to afford the tech.

    Let’s jump to today when 3D printing is now taking off and scientists are using it to make groundbreaking discoveries in the world of science and medicine. This wonderful infographic from the fine folks at Printerinks shows how far 3D printing has come from its humble origins and how scientists are using the tech to grow organs.

    As we learned back when researchers were creating working blood vessels with a 3D printer, the process is as simple as it is complex. It starts with the growth of cells. The 3D printer comes into play when they are used to create a layered structure that’s then layered with cells that attach to the structure and turn it into the organ.

    With our current technology, it’s estimated that it would take 10 days to print a liver. As technology improves, it’s estimated that scientists could print a liver in three hours. That’s great news for the thousands of people who are waiting for a live transplant to save their life.

    The creation of organs through 3D printing has another, less talked about function, as well. If we could test drugs on 3D printed human livers, it would save millions of dollars and years of time that it takes to develop and test new drugs on animals before it’s even considered for human testing.

    As you can see, 3D printing is seriously the most important invention of the 20th century. The only problem is that the technology doesn’t get enough credit for the potential it has. As long as I live, I hope to sing the praises of 3D printing from the rooftops until I need new lungs created through 3D printing to replace my old ones.

    Bioprinting infographic

    Created by Printerinks

  • Men Are From Reddit, Women Are From Pinterest [Infographic]

    While there is nothing inherently masculine about the way in which Google+ operates, we’ve seen time and time again that the demographic breakdown heavily favors men. Similarly, there’s nothing inherently feminine about the using Pinterest, but girls have flocked to the site in higher numbers than boys.

    And although there’s nothing about certain social sites that exclude one sex or the other, it’s abundantly clear that some things about certain social networks are more attractive to men, and some things appeal to women. And the lines are rather clearly drawn.

    First off, women are more likely to participate in social media in general. And they hold a commanding lead in two of the most popular networks – Facebook and Twitter. In fact, nearly 2/3 of Twitter users are women (and 58% of Facebook users).

    Women also dominate Pinterest with more than four times the users as men.

    On the flip side, reddit seems to be the guy’s version of Pinterest as they dominate the social aggregator with 84% of the membership.

    Another interest fact about the sexes on social media is that there are more men on LinkedIn alone that al off the women on reddit, LinkedIn, and Google+ combined.

    Check out the “Battle of the Sexes” in social media infographic below, courtesy of Digital Flash NYC.

    Sexes and social media infographic

    [via Mashable]

  • iPhone: $150 Billion In Revenue In First Five Years

    What were you doing five years ago this Friday? Let’s put things in a little bit of perspective: George W. Bush was President of the United States, Pixar’s Ratatouille was in theaters, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was less than a month away from hitting stores, the San Antonio Spurs had just swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, and the Boston Red Sox were just a few months away from winning their second World Series in four years after an 86 year drought.

    In the midst of all this, something else significant was going on. On June 29th, 2007, Apple’s first iPhone finally launched, over six months after Steve Jobs took the stage to announce it. Here’s what Apple’s website looked like back then:

    Apple iPhone Website 2007

    A lot has changed in the five years since the first iPhone hit stores. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Apple’s smartphone – which many experts thought would be a flop – has completely revolutionized the smartphone market. Google completely overhauled their Android operating system to incorporate touchscreen technology following the iPhone’s launch and the once mighty BlackBerry is in the midst of a slow, painful death.

    If you pay much attention to Apple – particularly to Apple’s earnings reports – you know that the iPhone is their biggest moneymaker. Last quarter they sold 35.1 million iPhones. That’s 12 million more units than the iPad, iPod, and all Mac models combined. In the previous quarter the iPhone accounted for more than half of Apple’s revenues. In fact, it generated more revenue by itself than all of Microsoft.

    All told, according to recent data released by Strategy Analytics, Apple has sold 250 million iPhones in the first five years of the device’s life. Those 250 million iPhones have brought the company a staggering $150 billion in revenue. That, for those of you who don’t feel like doing the math, comes out to $600 in revenue per iPhone.

    To put the iPhone’s impact in a little bit of perspective, the folks at VoucherCodes.co.uk have put together an infographic with some interesting facts about the iPhone’s 5-year history. Check it out below:

    Source: VoucherCodes.co.uk

  • Video Games Are Evolving And You Can’t Press B To Stop It

    Video games kind of suck this year. Sure, there’s going to be another blockbuster winter full of Assassin’s Creed III, Epic Mickey 2 and Halo 4, but is that all there really is? E3, the Christmas for gamers, turned out to be more like Columbus Day. Why has this year been so bad?

    The answer is pretty simple really. People are tired of what we currently have. They want something new and flashy. We’re still gaming on hardware that’s now 6-years-old. People are also moving to mobile with the iPad and various smartphones. Mobile gamers get hardware updates every year which results in better and better games. Console gamers are still using the same old DualShock 3s and Xbox 360 gamepads from 2006.

    All of these elements are combining to push gaming through a transition of sorts. Thanks to a lovely infographic from Statista, we can now see exactly how this transition is affecting gamers – console, PC and mobile alike. The results may just surprise you.

    It should be noted that retail game sales are down to their lowest level since 2006. That was the year that the PS3 and Wii launched. The Xbox 360 had a year-long head start, but it didn’t contribute to great hardware or software sales because everybody was still gaming on their old consoles. You see a massive spike in 2007 and 2008 mostly due to the Wii bringing in more people. The decline is due to people losing interest in the Wii and turning towards alternative methods of play.

    Another encroaching factor is the rise of digital sales. Why go to the store when you can just buy the game online and download it at your leisure? It seems that everybody else had the same thought which led to digital taking up 31 percent of the games market in 2011. Sure, retail was still king, but digital made a 11 percent jump since 2009.

    As for the household, it seems that consoles still remain the number one gaming device at 70 percent. That’s followed closely by the PC at 65 percent. What’s interesting is that the smartphone has now overtaken the dedicated handheld system with 38 to 35 percent respectively. It’s not entirely dominating, but it’s a sign that people are more willing to spend time playing a simple distraction on the iPhone over an engrossing tale on the 3DS or Vita.

    Analysts expect the number of mobile gamers to rise to over 150 million by 2016. Of course, that number is people who play a game on a mobile device at least once a month. I wouldn’t really call that a gamer, but the analysts do and they’re the ones who call the shots.

    Of course, the premium price demanded by console games means that they will still make more money than even the most popular mobile title for now at least. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 made $1 billion in sales after only 16 days on the market. Rovio only made $106.3 million in 2011 off of Angry Birds. That’s still pretty good for a game that’s free on one platform and only $1 on the other.

    All of this is to say that gaming is growing and expanding beyond its humble roots. More and more people are entering the fold and finding the joy that games can bring. Are the core games that presumably you and I enjoy at risk of dying out? Of course not. There will always be a market for the Skyrims of the world. Mobile just means that more people get to enjoy the experiences that we’ve been enjoying for the past 20 plus years. It’s a good thing, trust me.

    Browse more data visualizations.

    [Lead image: jeriaska/flickr]

    [Chart of the Day: Statista]

  • IPv6 Launch Day Saw Over 3,000 Companies Make The Switch

    June 6, 2012 will be remembered among those of us who love the Internet as World IPv6 Launch Day. It was a pretty momentous occasion that went unnoticed by most mainstream media (but we covered it). The move was required to allow the Internet to grow even larger than it was under IPv4. While the numbers of those who have switched is still relatively low, it’s going to keep growing.

    Now that it’s been a few weeks since the launch of IPv6, the fine people over at World IPv6 Launch have thrown together an infographic that explains the importance of IPv6 and which companies have made the switch so far.

    As you all probably know by now, IPv4 was pretty much tapped and has been for the past few years. According to estimates, the Asia Pacific region ran out of IPv4 addresses back in April 2011 and Europe was going to run out in August of this year. Something needed to be done and IPv6 was the answer.

    IPv6 is pretty amazing because it greatly expands upon the amount of IP addresses that are available to us compared to IPv4. IPv4 only had 4.3 billion IP addresses where as IPv6 has 340 undecillion (that’s 38 zeroes) IP addresses. To put that into even better perspective, that’s 4.3 billion IP addresses for every star in the known universe.

    So who’s using all those IP addresses? During the launch on June 6, over 3,000 Web sites took the charge to make the switch. Some of these companies include AOL, Bing, Facebook, Google, Mozilla, NASA, Netflix and others. On top of all of those companies, 65 network operators including AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and others all made the switch. For consumers, five home router vendors – Cisco, D-Link, NEC Access, Yahama and Zyxel – updated their hardware to be IPv6 compliant.

    More and more Web sites and companies will begin deploying IPv6 over the coming months and years. It will soon usurp IPv4 and become the new standard to which we connect to the Internet on. Once we reach that milestone, it will be a day just as important, if not more, than June 6, 2012.

    IPv6 Launch Day Companies Switch

  • If Internet and Tech Companies Were Honest…

    What would happen if the internet, technology and gaming industries told the truth about what they were selling? Aside from total anarchy from stocks plummeting and millions of bored Americans with no internet to waste time on (notice the first few all have to do with wasting time) — I think the long term side effect would be an added trust in the brands we use everyday. If you are ruining personal productivitly, just own it. If your mehandise is way overpriced or break after a while. Own it. We already know whats going on here anyway.

    Sadly, that will never be the case, but it’s fun to imagine if:

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    This one’s not really a tech or internet company, but probably the most truthful of the lot.

    This series is brought to you by graphic designer Viktor Hertz. He did an interview with My Modern Met about his viral success which is transcribed below:

    Did anything come of your Pictogram movie posters going viral?
    Yes! I’m still in awe from this, it’s just amazing how they have been spread on the internet. I’m really grateful and a bit surprised. I’ve sold some posters, but the greatest thing is all the people writing to me, wanting to ask me questions or just tell me they like what I’m doing. Such an ego boost and also a great motivator for me to keep doing what I do. I also got a few jobs, people wanting help with logos and stuff, so it has really paid off. Thank you MMM!

    Why did you start this new series?
    Adbusting logos was actually the very first thing I started to do in graphic design, so this is like going back to my original ideas and style. I’ve always been a fan of satire and adbusting, and I always look at things and try to figure out a way to remix them and give them a new meaning. I guess it’s easy to amuse people, when the image is built on something you recognise. It’s just meant to be a silly little project, I didn’t think they would get this much attention. So I wish I had worked harder on some of them… : )

    Are these all side projects?
    Yes, these are just images I get ideas for, so there will be more of them every now and then. I will try to sharpen my ideas a bit, and be more on the spot. As I said in the info for this project, some of them are quite cheap, but I do try to bring something true and honest to it.

    What do you hope others get out of Honest Logos?
    I have no idea! I’m just glad if people find them amusing. And I hope that I won’t get sued by the companies or something, they are meant to be fun and silly. I don’t hate Facebook or YouTube or video games, that some people apparently think I do. They are made with love (cue cheesy orchestral music, fade out).

  • Search Tips to Make You a Better Googler

    Here you will find the top 20 tips for mastering searches on Google. There are several tricks here that will give you completely different search result, so use them wisely or not at all. And be sure to share them with fellow Googlers. You will impress everyone in the room when you find that stupid cat video no one else could.

    Some of the tips are intuitive, and some of them you probably already knew. Like, you may have already known that search results are not case-sensitive, or that putting quotes around a word searches for that word specifically, but there are some gems in here that could make search results much more beneficial.

    For instance, I had no idea that google would look up only files of a certain type by entering “filetype:” before the three letter extension. I probably should have known that, but I didn’t. I also didn’t know that Google has the ability to find website similar to ones that you frequent. By typing “related:” before a search with a “.com” (or .net, or .gov, etc), you can find websites similar to the one you entered.

    You can also use Google to search for results within a given site. They us the example of reddit.com. Just place the word “site:” before your search, to find only results within Reddit.

    And so on. There are lots of examples and cool tricks to discover for maximum relevance in your Google searches. For some this may just be a refresher course, but to the average internet user, this is key to a better understanding of how Google works and how it can work for you.