From a speedometer to a weather map to a stock chart, we routinely interpret and act on data displayed visually. With a few exceptions, data has no natural “look,” no natural “visualization,” and choices have to be made about how it should be displayed. Each choice can reveal certain kinds of patterns in the data
Authormkrisch
‘Magic Grants’ awards announced!
The Brown Institute for Media Innovation has awarded seed funding to teams of students, post-docs and faculty from Stanford and Columbia universities to develop new technologies that could transform the ways media content is produced, delivered and consumed. The winning projects include a natural language processor that detects media bias, an experiment in augmenting stories with virtual
Board member Meeker at Code Conference
Brown Institute Board member Mary Meeker made news at the inaugural Code Conference on May 28, presenting her annual “most influential Internet trends” of the year. Meeker’s “top 10” touted IOS manufacturing in the U.S., the rise of cyberthreats, the growth of online education, the digitization of healthcare, the push toward private social circles, big
Coverage in the Niemanlab Blog!
The Niemanlab Blog has just posted a great article about the Institute — “Shaping technology to the story: The Brown Institute for Media Innovation is finding its niche”
Dispatch @ WWW ’13
The 2012-2013 Magic Grant Dispatch, a platform for secure communication when journalists report from scenes of conflict. We are happy to announce that a paper by the Dispatch Team, “Weaving a Safe Web of News,” was accepted to the Social News on the Web workshop of the WWW ’13 conference. Congratulations!
The Brown space in Pulitzer Hall
This morning, we took an image of the new home for the Brown Institute. As you can see, it’s a blank canvas. Last week, LTL Architects delivered their final designs and construction is scheduled to begin in a couple months. We will post construction images (who doesn’t love process pics?) as the project develops. (Here is an interactive
Research, Three Ways
The institute hosted over 100 journalists and technologists at an event designed to prompt new ideas for our Magic Grants. The Tow Center were co-sponsors and Hearst provided the venue. Forty-four floors above Central Park, we held a mini-unconference, organizing around new ideas and unasked questions about how stories are discovered and told. It was
DataFest
The Stanford and Columbia branches of the Brown Institute hosted a weekend data event exploring the role of money in politics. With funding from the MacArthur Foundation, teaching and data from the Sunlight Foundation and spiritual guidance by Teresa Bouza from EFE, about 150 participants completed some amazing projects. Kathy Kiely of Sunlight wrote an excellent
Computation+Journalism
The Brown Institute co-sponsored and helped organize this year’s Computation+Journalism meeting. We tackled some pretty big questions: “What role does computation have in the practice of journalism today and in the near future? As computer-driven forces like automation and aggregation increasingly alter the role of journalists and journalism in society, how can computation become a force