A year of Chicago’s crime, in 30 seconds

By Drew Conway, on June 21st, 2011

Yesterday Brett Goldstein, the Chief Data Officer for the City of Chicago, announced on Twitter the release of Chicago’s crime data for the past year. The data is very detailed, and wonderful resource for criminologist and social scientists alike.


A year of Chicago's crime, in 30 seconds from Drew Conway on Vimeo.
I have been playing around with the data a bit, and have produced an animation that explores the geospatial nature of the data. Similar to what Mike Dewar did with the Afghanistan War Logs, I wanted to show variation over time rather than simple aggregates. To do so, I decided to plot moving 10-day windows of the data on a map of Chicago’s police districts. Moreover, I wanted to show the regional trends of different kinds of crime throughout Chicago.
The map below shows these 10-day windows, with the crime types color coded. The boundary lines on the map indicate police districts. Each dot represents a crime, and the opacity of each dot corresponds to the number of this type of crime reported in that geographic location on that day. For example, a dark shaded pink dot would indicate an area of heavy theft. Because there are a large number of crime types in the data I restricted this animation to only the top 18 crime types. These are those crimes for which there are over 1,000 incidents total.
This visual technique provides insight into the intensity of various crime types across region in Chicago. In addition, the timeline below the map highlights the current chronological window being plotted, as well as the total density of crimes for the entire data set. The color codes in the this timeline correspond to those on the map.
There is a lot going on here, so it is best viewed in full-screen mode…

A year of crime in Chicago, in 30 seconds from Drew Conway on Vimeo.

For me, lots of interesting observation:

1. There actually appears to be very little variation in both the volume and location of crime. Downtown Chicago is consistently plagued by a high-degree of theft, while burglary is much more frequent in the south of Chicago. Also, the density timeline shows vary little change in the volume over time.
2. Crimes are symbiotic. That is, it seems certain types of crimes coexists quite well; such as narcotics and prostitution. This is exemplified by he prominent north-eastern ring.
3. People do not like to commit crimes in the cold. Conventional wisdom supports this, and Chicago appears to be no different. Though there is very little variation, there is a slight dip in the overall number of crimes from December through February.
4. If you look closely, you can actually see the formation of roads where crimes occur. Particularly those that lead in and out of downtown.

Not being a Chicagoan, I would welcome alternative observations from those with a better understanding of the geography and crime trends.
P.S., The above animation was made entirely with open source tools: R, ggplot2, ImageMagick, and ffmpeg.
Code available here

A year of Chicago’s crime, in 30 seconds

By Drew Conway, on June 21st, 2011

Yesterday Brett Goldstein, the Chief Data Officer for the City of Chicago, announced on Twitter the release of Chicago’s crime data for the past year. The data is very detailed, and wonderful resource for criminologist and social scientists alike.

A year of Chicago's crime, in 30 seconds from Drew Conway on Vimeo.

I have been playing around with the data a bit, and have produced an animation that explores the geospatial nature of the data. Similar to what Mike Dewar did with the Afghanistan War Logs, I wanted to show variation over time rather than simple aggregates. To do so, I decided to plot moving 10-day windows of the data on a map of Chicago’s police districts. Moreover, I wanted to show the regional trends of different kinds of crime throughout Chicago.
The map below shows these 10-day windows, with the crime types color coded. The boundary lines on the map indicate police districts. Each dot represents a crime, and the opacity of each dot corresponds to the number of this type of crime reported in that geographic location on that day. For example, a dark shaded pink dot would indicate an area of heavy theft. Because there are a large number of crime types in the data I restricted this animation to only the top 18 crime types. These are those crimes for which there are over 1,000 incidents total.
This visual technique provides insight into the intensity of various crime types across region in Chicago. In addition, the timeline below the map highlights the current chronological window being plotted, as well as the total density of crimes for the entire data set. The color codes in the this timeline correspond to those on the map.
There is a lot going on here, so it is best viewed in full-screen mode…

Nokia renews mission for mobile and location based services; appoints Michael Halbherr Executive Vice President

Nokia today announced that Michael Halbherr has been appointed executive vice president to spearhead Nokia's revised mission in mobile and location-based services.  Effective July 1, 2011, Michael Halbherr will become a member of the Nokia Leadership Team, reporting to CEO Stephen Elop.

Halbherr will lead a new Location & Commerce business, which will be formed by integrating the NAVTEQ business with Nokia's social location services operations. The Location & Commerce business will develop a new class of integrated social location products and services for consumers, as well as platform services and local commerce services for device manufacturers, application developers, internet services providers, merchants, and advertisers.

While continuing to serve NAVTEQ's existing customers, the Location & Commerce business will provide exciting new opportunities through the integration of Nokia community data. In addition to a broad portfolio of products and services for the wider internet ecosystem, the Location & Commerce business will also create integrated social location offerings in support of Nokia's strategic goal in smartphones, including Nokia products with Windows Phones, as well as support for bringing the internet to the next billion.

"Focusing on location and commerce is a natural next step in Nokia's Services journey. We will provide next generation social-location applications and commerce to differentiate Nokia. We also aim to extend our content and services offerings to all consumers by making them available to partners and customers on a wide variety of devices and operating systems," said Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. "Michael is a widely recognized authority in the fields of mobility and social location services, and I am delighted to appoint him to lead an area of our business that will be crucial in Nokia's transformation strategy."

Halbherr has been with Nokia since 2006, most recently leading the product unit in Nokia's Services business, based in Berlin. Prior to joining Nokia in 2006, he worked for the Boston Consulting Group and at europatweb, the Internet investment vehicle of Groupe Arnault, overseeing all technology investments. In 2001, Halbherr became CEO of gate5 AG, a leading supplier of mapping, routing and navigation software and services globally.  In 2006, gate5 was acquired by Nokia. Halbherr holds a PhD in electrical engineering from ETH Zurich, spending four years at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.

Tero Ojanpera, who served as the acting head of the Services business, will continue as executive sponsor of Nokia's Bridge program designed to promote innovation and entrepreneurship with employees affected by Nokia's workforce alignment initiatives announced on April 27, 2011.  Under his leadership, the program will invest to facilitate partnership with affected employees, local communities, and a variety of partners to support start-ups and create new business opportunities. Tero Ojanpera will continue as a member of the Nokia Leadership Team.

Larry Kaplan, who has served as CEO for NAVTEQ, will continue to support the transition work for the new Location & Commerce business through year-end.

The Future of Business enterprise Cleverness: Innovations in Location Intelligence

The Future of Business enterprise Cleverness: Innovations in Location Intelligence

Sunday, June 19, 2011

In the future, quite a few company professionals are forecasting that Business enterprise Learning ability (Biual) plays a fundamental purpose in the achievements of many different kinds of businesses. This is due to the fact that more businesses are acknowledging the benefits of spatial information research making smart company decisions. Putting to use company cleverness solutions offers like advantages as: pinpointing the location of targeted shoppers, being familiar with shoppers greater, attaining targeted shoppers, optimizing company procedures, controlling income better, minimizing hazards, and guessing potential issues. Due to adjusting shopper life-style that now incorporates integrating technological innovation into their everyday lifestyles, the future and development of spot cleverness is expected to pay attention to like technologies as the web and cellular technological innovation like iPhones. The end result of utilizing spot cleverness solutions inside of a globe where technological innovation is now section of practically everyone's every day life is enormously increased company efficiency.
Businesses use spot cleverness methods of acquire, prepare, and evaluate shopper information by means of geographic styles and relationships. Mainly because shopper fads are switching to using like technological innovation as the web, iPhones…etcetera, on a daily basis, company cleverness clubs ought to now funnel the possibilities this technology has as a way to boost their promotion tactics and accomplish their targeted current market. On top of that, the adjusting economy has triggered decreased promotion budgets which may have made the development helpful and successful promotion tactics far more vital.
Today the net has your global huge current market that doesn't have any geographical boundaries. As an example, it is predicted that 1 billion individuals will admittance web sites from the year 2014 and almost all of the end users make use of a region based mostly application. Businesses now can communicate directly utilizing their targeted shoppers and meet their demands as a way to achieve competitive edge. Too, internet marketers will be better in a position to distinguish present-day shopper fads and outlook long run fads. It will help them make and apply more potent company tactics who have an improved chance of becoming successful. A company is able to greater comprehend consumer behaviour, acknowledge and benefit from total commander sudden possibilities, and foresee problems before they take place.
Social research, impair research, and traveling with a laptop, have become section of most customers' everyday lifestyles. Foreseeable future improvements in spot cleverness permits companies to funnel these technology to cultivate helpful ways of accomplish their clients. As an example, taking advantage of shopper operated design apps calls for integrating like areas as promotion, merchandise campaign, consumer respect, level of acquire…etcetera., into these apps. Too, employing Serious-Time Business enterprise Learning ability to get instantaneous details can become required to becoming successful.
Because of the victory of huge spatial information solutions like Yahoo and google road directions, more rrndividuals are following spot based mostly apps like iphone 3gs Apps, businesses ought to now engage in modern pondering to make the most the info. Sometime soon, design progress will result in company cleverness having a important change that will revolutionize exactly how company decisions are manufactured. Businesses who do not embrace this change will certainly be at a life threatening problem when attemping to achieve in this type of greatly competing globe.

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