![Great, now Mark Zuckerberg will control more of my life.
futurejournalismproject:
Facebook Buys Instagram for a Reported $1 Billion
That’s billion, with a ‘b’, in cash and stock.
Via Mark Zuckerberg:
[I]n order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.
That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.
Glad to see they’ll keep it independent. — Michael](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m283xpJytR1qedj2ho1_500.png)
Great, now Mark Zuckerberg will control more of my life.
futurejournalismproject:
Facebook Buys Instagram for a Reported $1 Billion
That’s billion, with a ‘b’, in cash and stock.
Via Mark Zuckerberg:
[I]n order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.
That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.
Glad to see they’ll keep it independent. — Michael
In case you needed further proof that XKCD was brilliant, this is an awesome and super accessible data visualization.
sunfoundation:
Lakes and Oceans
futurejournalismproject:
Wikipedia joins a growing list of high profile organizations leaving Google Maps and moving to the open source Open Street Maps. The move comes after Google announced in March that they would begin charging Web sites that receive more than 25,000 requests per month for use of their maps.
Via Wikipedia:
Previous versions of our application used Google Maps for the nearby view. This has now been replaced with OpenStreetMap - an open and free source of Map Data that has been referred to as ‘Wikipedia for Maps.’ This closely aligns with our goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone. This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.
OpenStreetMap is used in both iOS and Android, thanks to the amazing Leaflet.js library. We are currently using Mapquest’s map tiles for our application, but plan on switching to our own tile servers in the near future.
Also, via Techspot, a look at mapping economics:
In March, Google announced it would be charging high-volume users for its once gratis Google Maps service. Developer accounts which pull in fewer than 25,000 requests per month are not considered high-volume and thus have remained free. However, for accounts that exceed 25,000 views, developers must pay between $4 to $10 for every additional 1,000 views generated. For popular websites and apps that rely on Google Maps APIs, this can add up pretty quickly…
…Although some may be quick to call out Google for its decision to charge a premium, Google Maps has really been the only mapping service to offer its product to everyone without cost. Traditionally, companies like NavTeq and TeleNav have always licensed their map data to third parties. It costs a lot of money to put together accurate maps and Google took some risk offering theirs free of charge. As a result, Google Maps has become the go-to place for many companies and users alike. In fact, comScore found that over 71% of Americans had used Google Maps in February.
1 year ago -
23
Aw yeaaaahhhh! I’m a blackjack wizard!
OK, OK, maybe not. This week’s CodeYear lesson was all good but the Blackjack game was a bit awkward in its execution. Apparently we’ll be approaching this again later, but in the meantime I think I’ll be setting a couple goals for myself to tweak this program.
1) It kills me that the program does not check for duplication of cards; you just can’t draw the same card twice in real Blackjack
2) Come on, we really need some card names in there. Seriously, “42” — other than being the answer to life, the universe and everything — doesn’t mean anything to me in a deck of cards.
3) Maybe playing with arrays? It’s not a topic that’s been covered extensively yet, but it seems like that could be another way to set up the deck of cards.
I just stayed up unreasonably late trying to wrangle some census data into Google Fusion Tables.
The upshot: Change in median age by Vermont County from 2000 to 2010. Interactive. Exciting. Embarrassingly simple, considering the number of hours that went into making it.
But here’s to many more!
Here’s Slate’s vote for Codeyear, which I signed up for earlier this week.
It’s not just a vote for programming lessons, which are created by the folks behind Codecademy. It’s a vote for learning to code. Now.
I’ll admit, December socked me a new one and I had very little time to program. But even though I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions, if I had one it would be to become a coding ninja. And with any luck, Codeyear will help.
1 year ago
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