Satellite and computer visualizations of human activity. Click to enlarge.

The first image, in the upper left,

…shows air traffic in the US based on the data from FlightView, a page that tracks air traffic in real time. You can see it using three different criteria. The first is altitude—which is the one you are seeing here. The darker blues indicate higher altitude, while the lightest blue indicates take off and landing. [Source, with more images: Gizmodo ]

The other images are all of the United Kingdom, and are from a new BBC TV series, “Britain from Above“. These aerial/computer images show, clockwise from the top right: aircraft flight paths, London Taxi activity, Internet activity in the South of England, images on Britain’s roads as seen from over the M4/M5 junction near Bristol, and UK telephone exchange activity. [Source, with videos: Gizmodo]

Americans’ search patterns reflect their narrowing financial straits, according to the marketing research firm comScore. The number of Internet searches incorporating the word “unemployment” more than tripled from December 2007 to December 2008. Bankruptcy appeared in more than twice as many searches, and “coupons” went from 7.6 million searches to 19.9 million.

“Coupons and discounts are a major ‘tell’ as far as consumer behavior,” said Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at comScore. “Coupon sites grew 33 percent year over year for this January.”

People ages 25 to 34 seem to be searching most heavily for the term “unemployment,” relative to the percentage they represent of all searches. But, Mr. Lipsman said, “No demographic is immune.”