New Microsoft Live Labs Pivot technology provides information visualization

At the TED2010 conference, Microsoft unveiled its new data visualization tool, Live Labs. This service introduced users to Pivot, a data visualization technology designed to simplify the use of large digital data sets.

Pivot is an experimental technology that allows data to be presented graphically for subsequent organization and classification. Pivot's key feature is its ability to analyze not only numerical but also graphical data. This is evident, for example, in this illustration—the result of a Pivot analysis of baseball players.

Pivot resembles the pivot table tool available in Excel, but it is a conceptually new technology. The first versions of Pivot were presented to a limited number of users last fall at the Professional Developers Conference.

Gary Flake, founder and director of Microsoft's Live Labs division, said the technology was quickly a hit with users: "People were using Pivot in ways we didn't expect."

Gary Flake gave several examples of Pivot's use in his work. For example, the technology was used to analyze a user's Facebook friends—their age distribution, where they live, and how many of them are married. Another example of Pivot's use was analyzing statistical data from an online dating service.

A more serious use of Pivot was to study the staff and students of one school – testing results, attendance rates, teacher salaries, and other data. Pivot technology was also used by Microsoft employees, who applied the tool to analyze the online advertising market in

last year.

Gary Flake called Pivot a unique infographics tool: "Imagine that instead of creating a table or chart at a client meeting, you could present an infographic created with Pivot. This visual information will help you quickly convey the main idea of ​​your presentation to your audience."