6 ms·

Watch London in real time: tweets, tubes, etc.

96 points by vjvj 12y ago

Angostura 12y ago
Loads on an iPad 2 Safari and the crashes the browser shortly after a city is selected.
- mcintyre1994 12y ago
  Same on Chrome on current Android
markcrazyhorse 12y ago
pretty amazing
PostOnce 12y ago
Is this data gathered by the Watch_Dogs companion app for mobile devices, I wonder?
- marmarlade 12y ago
  You can find the data sources in the footer - http://imgur.com/QknNS6B http://imgur.com/QknNS6B If the companion app also feeds in, cue the obligatory "OMG SURVEILLANCE HAS GONE TOO FAR" remarks.
BlackLamb 12y ago
Amazing, How was this coded?
- corford 12y ago
  Looks like it's done in Flash. Still very impressive but would have been even cooler if it was all JS/webgl/canvas voodoo. Would love to know where they're getting some of the data from (e.g. the bikes and atm locations).
  - marmarlade 12y ago
    [edit] For sources, hit Legals in the bottom right footer, then Sources - Credit in the top (as per http://imgur.com/QknNS6B http://imgur.com/QknNS6B) [/edit] Not sure about the other cities, but for London, the bike locations are probably coming from the GLA Datastore http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/tfl-cycle-hire-locations http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/tfl-cycle-hire-l.... ATM information perhaps through Mastercard's API? http://www.programmableweb.com/api/mastercard-atm-locations http://www.programmableweb.com/api/mastercard-atm-locations I saw this a while back and thought it was a brilliantly executed marketing campaign. On a side note, whatever happened to Ingress?
    - Kiro 12y ago
      I have a few friends playing it actively so I don't think anything happened. I keep getting update emails as well.
    - Iv 12y ago
      Are you sure that they are not just faking the data?
      - marmarlade 12y ago
        Hmm, if they are, they're elaborately faking to the extent of making up sources in the footer. I'll take a look tonight if there is a CCTV camera where they claim there is and let you know!
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    Well, this explains why it's performing reasonably well.
grimtrigger 12y ago
Do tweets have location data attached to them?
- duiker101 12y ago
  > Users must opt-in to use the Tweeting With Location feature (turn location "on"). https://dev.twitter.com/terms/geo-developer-guidelines https://dev.twitter.com/terms/geo-developer-guidelines
  - grimtrigger 12y ago
    Interesting. Why would anyone do that?
    - richardmjohn 12y ago
      Because a location often adds context? You can turn it on/off very easily on a tweeet-by-tweet basis.
      - oalders 12y ago
        I find it especially helpful to add location when posting a photo of some landmark or public event. I wouldn't tag tweets by location when I'm at home, but if I'm out it's a neat way to complement the tweet.
SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
It appears to be broken rather than "amazing" for me in 3 different browsers on 2 OSs. "click on the map or on a blue symbol ..." Clicking on the map does nothing and there are no blue symbols shown.
- treerock 12y ago
  Works in Chrome for me. In firefox I got a blank screen, then an 'easyXDM' window popped up with some logging data in it. Strange.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
    Today with the same browser, there is stuff that wasn't there yesterday: blue symbols, the outlines of boroughs, click through, the works. Most likely their servers were choking under the load yesterday and failing to supply many of the data sets.
pantalaimon 12y ago
Why does this eat up all my CPU?
- vgnanand 12y ago
  it's flash after all
actionscripted 12y ago
What an amazing site to build as a companion to a video game. Can anyone explain if this is somehow integral to the game itself?
- rrss1122 12y ago
  It's related to the game's story. In the game, Chicago is interconnected with a computer system that allows one to control city infrastructure and eavesdrop on people. I guess the site is showcasing the eavesdropping part, in a case of life imitates art.
  - corin_ 12y ago
    Surely it's already art imitating life, just because they've then looked backwards and shown the life example that's similar to the art it doesn't make it life imitating art?
pcocko 12y ago
It looks amazing but getting data from a twitter mainstream with geolocalized tweets as other social data as well is not difficult to implement. In my opinion the key is how to create that map from scratch.
thefreeman 12y ago
So one of the sources listed is http://opencellid.de/ http://opencellid.de/ and there are similar services for the other countries tracking mobile phones. Can anyone familiar with this explain how this type of service is possible? From my limited understanding, it seems like these services all track / utilize cell phone base stations, which I understand to essentially be the device that connects you to the network. But how do they identify the positions of all of the mobile devices utilizing each station? Is this something that is openly broadcasted by the base stations?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dan1234 12y ago
  The OpenCellID data is collected by volunteers via smartphone apps. The location of the phones on the map is where they were when they reported the base station.
- samwillis 12y ago
  The maps on the OP's posting only show the location of cell base stations, not the positions of mobile devices. There is more of them than you realise...
strict9 12y ago
Splash screen, loading screen, Adobe Flash, microscopic typefaces. Feel like I went through a time warp to 2001. Also does not work at all on Chrome for Mac.
- sebkomianos 12y ago
  It works fine on my MaChrome. And I got the same '00s feeling.
- 650REDHAIR 12y ago
  Let out a "what year is this" comment myself when the flash player started loading. I was able to get it running on Chrome 35/Mavericks, but now that it's loaded I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do... I can see old tweets and their location in relation to ATMs or traffic lights? Woo?
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  All the visual twitching - busy, busy, busy - makes me feel like I'm looking at someone's migraine. Worked fine on Chrome for Mac here, but instantly redlined my i7.
modelm2hb 12y ago
Works fine on Windows 8.1 with Chrome 35. By far the most interesting thing is the overlay of map with tweets. I'm using a cinema display, so can't say I have problems reading small type. Although the color scheme looks very Blade Runner, it makes overlaying only a few options difficult to grok. Scrolling is slow. Still impressed this was rolled out for a video game. Have there been any other presentations like this in the past?
ChrisArchitect 12y ago
year ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001799
dalek2point3 12y ago
where does the data come from? OpenStreetMap?
hankcharles 12y ago
working on something similar for chicago with a bit less load time: citypulse.io
randunel 12y ago
300% CPU Usage... model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4702MQ CPU @ 2.20GHz Interesting data aggregation, but impossible to use without a supercomputer.
- yitchelle 12y ago
  Seems to work fine on my i5 win7 Lenovo T430 "nothing special, off the shelf workhorse" laptop

96 points by vjvj 12y ago

Angostura 12y ago

Loads on an iPad 2 Safari and the crashes the browser shortly after a city is selected.

mcintyre1994 12y ago
Same on Chrome on current Android

markcrazyhorse 12y ago

pretty amazing

PostOnce 12y ago

Is this data gathered by the Watch_Dogs companion app for mobile devices, I wonder?

marmarlade 12y ago
You can find the data sources in the footer - http://imgur.com/QknNS6B http://imgur.com/QknNS6B If the companion app also feeds in, cue the obligatory "OMG SURVEILLANCE HAS GONE TOO FAR" remarks.

BlackLamb 12y ago

Amazing, How was this coded?

corford 12y ago
Looks like it's done in Flash. Still very impressive but would have been even cooler if it was all JS/webgl/canvas voodoo. Would love to know where they're getting some of the data from (e.g. the bikes and atm locations).
- marmarlade 12y ago
  [edit] For sources, hit Legals in the bottom right footer, then Sources - Credit in the top (as per http://imgur.com/QknNS6B http://imgur.com/QknNS6B) [/edit] Not sure about the other cities, but for London, the bike locations are probably coming from the GLA Datastore http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/tfl-cycle-hire-locations http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/tfl-cycle-hire-l.... ATM information perhaps through Mastercard's API? http://www.programmableweb.com/api/mastercard-atm-locations http://www.programmableweb.com/api/mastercard-atm-locations I saw this a while back and thought it was a brilliantly executed marketing campaign. On a side note, whatever happened to Ingress?
  - Kiro 12y ago
    I have a few friends playing it actively so I don't think anything happened. I keep getting update emails as well.
  - Iv 12y ago
    Are you sure that they are not just faking the data?
    - marmarlade 12y ago
      Hmm, if they are, they're elaborately faking to the extent of making up sources in the footer. I'll take a look tonight if there is a CCTV camera where they claim there is and let you know!
- CmonDev 12y ago
  Well, this explains why it's performing reasonably well.

grimtrigger 12y ago

Do tweets have location data attached to them?

duiker101 12y ago
> Users must opt-in to use the Tweeting With Location feature (turn location "on"). https://dev.twitter.com/terms/geo-developer-guidelines https://dev.twitter.com/terms/geo-developer-guidelines
- grimtrigger 12y ago
  Interesting. Why would anyone do that?
  - richardmjohn 12y ago
    Because a location often adds context? You can turn it on/off very easily on a tweeet-by-tweet basis.
    - oalders 12y ago
      I find it especially helpful to add location when posting a photo of some landmark or public event. I wouldn't tag tweets by location when I'm at home, but if I'm out it's a neat way to complement the tweet.

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago

It appears to be broken rather than "amazing" for me in 3 different browsers on 2 OSs. "click on the map or on a blue symbol ..." Clicking on the map does nothing and there are no blue symbols shown.

treerock 12y ago
Works in Chrome for me. In firefox I got a blank screen, then an 'easyXDM' window popped up with some logging data in it. Strange.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
  Today with the same browser, there is stuff that wasn't there yesterday: blue symbols, the outlines of boroughs, click through, the works. Most likely their servers were choking under the load yesterday and failing to supply many of the data sets.

pantalaimon 12y ago

Why does this eat up all my CPU?

vgnanand 12y ago
it's flash after all

actionscripted 12y ago

What an amazing site to build as a companion to a video game. Can anyone explain if this is somehow integral to the game itself?

rrss1122 12y ago
It's related to the game's story. In the game, Chicago is interconnected with a computer system that allows one to control city infrastructure and eavesdrop on people. I guess the site is showcasing the eavesdropping part, in a case of life imitates art.
- corin_ 12y ago
  Surely it's already art imitating life, just because they've then looked backwards and shown the life example that's similar to the art it doesn't make it life imitating art?

pcocko 12y ago

It looks amazing but getting data from a twitter mainstream with geolocalized tweets as other social data as well is not difficult to implement. In my opinion the key is how to create that map from scratch.

thefreeman 12y ago

So one of the sources listed is http://opencellid.de/ http://opencellid.de/ and there are similar services for the other countries tracking mobile phones. Can anyone familiar with this explain how this type of service is possible? From my limited understanding, it seems like these services all track / utilize cell phone base stations, which I understand to essentially be the device that connects you to the network. But how do they identify the positions of all of the mobile devices utilizing each station? Is this something that is openly broadcasted by the base stations?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dan1234 12y ago
The OpenCellID data is collected by volunteers via smartphone apps. The location of the phones on the map is where they were when they reported the base station.
samwillis 12y ago
The maps on the OP's posting only show the location of cell base stations, not the positions of mobile devices. There is more of them than you realise...

strict9 12y ago

Splash screen, loading screen, Adobe Flash, microscopic typefaces. Feel like I went through a time warp to 2001. Also does not work at all on Chrome for Mac.

sebkomianos 12y ago
It works fine on my MaChrome. And I got the same '00s feeling.
650REDHAIR 12y ago
Let out a "what year is this" comment myself when the flash player started loading. I was able to get it running on Chrome 35/Mavericks, but now that it's loaded I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do... I can see old tweets and their location in relation to ATMs or traffic lights? Woo?
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
All the visual twitching - busy, busy, busy - makes me feel like I'm looking at someone's migraine. Worked fine on Chrome for Mac here, but instantly redlined my i7.

modelm2hb 12y ago

Works fine on Windows 8.1 with Chrome 35. By far the most interesting thing is the overlay of map with tweets. I'm using a cinema display, so can't say I have problems reading small type. Although the color scheme looks very Blade Runner, it makes overlaying only a few options difficult to grok. Scrolling is slow. Still impressed this was rolled out for a video game. Have there been any other presentations like this in the past?

ChrisArchitect 12y ago

year ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001799

dalek2point3 12y ago

where does the data come from? OpenStreetMap?

hankcharles 12y ago

working on something similar for chicago with a bit less load time: citypulse.io

randunel 12y ago

300% CPU Usage... model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4702MQ CPU @ 2.20GHz Interesting data aggregation, but impossible to use without a supercomputer.

yitchelle 12y ago
Seems to work fine on my i5 win7 Lenovo T430 "nothing special, off the shelf workhorse" laptop