Google has launched a new Google Labs experiment called Public Data Explorer. The product takes large datasets and gives them a visual  interface with animated charts and maps.

"As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand," Google explains in the description. "You don't have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings."

"Students, journalists, policy makers and everyone else can play with the tool to create visualizations of public data, link to them, or embed them in their own webpages," says Google. "Embedded charts and links can update automatically so you’re always sharing the latest available data."

The following slideshow walks you through how to use Public Data Explorer:

There are six interesting examples available on the product page for you to mess around with, and get a feel for how the Public Data Explorer works.

Like all other Google Labs experiments, the product is subject to bugs, as well as user feedback. The company says it is making it available now to get in contact with public data providers. As you're probably aware, Google has this thing about organizing the world's information.

Four months ago, Facebook launched something called the Preferred Developer Consultant Program in an effort to point companies and celebrities towards the best developers.  Now, the program's taking an important leap forward as Facebook's more than tripled the number of recommended developers.

Facebook started things off with just 14 developers, which seemed like an interesting choice.  Those dozen or so developers couldn't possibly design too many Facebook pages and/or apps, after all, so was demand negligible?  Were great developers extremely rare?  Or did Facebook just feel like causing a crazy bidding war for people's services?

Today, the social network granted 35 additional developers "preferred" status, making the situation look somewhat manageable.

Kristin Thayer, a member of the Facebook Developer Network team, also explained that the global community's needs have been taken into consideration.  She wrote on the Facebook Developer Blog, "Over half of the new Preferred Developer Consultants have international operations and have already built campaigns, community portals, and other social applications in countries like Israel, Lithuania, and Czech Republic."

Thayer added, as well, "If you or your company builds high quality Facebook Connect implementations, Facebook applications, and/or Facebook Pages, and is interested in being included as a developer consultant in this program, please visit the Developer FAQ to learn more about submitting your company for consideration."

Yahoo's approach to the mobile market is about to change in a very noticeable way.  Indeed, Yahoo's mobile division will more or less cease to exist as a separate entity, with mobile becoming something of a company-wide concern.

One important note: no layoffs have been announced.  "We are infusing mobile throughout the organization, rather than having a specific team for mobile," Cory Pforzheimer, Yahoo's senior manager of corporate communications, explained to Tricia Duryee.  "Mobile is top of mind for everyone, and it's part of regional teams, business teams, product teams."

Obviously, this is a significant change, and it's one of several that have occurred in recent weeks.  Yahoo's introduced a dedicated mobile blog, released a new Social Pulse feature, and seen a mobile exec depart all in the last month or so.

It's possible the dissolution of Yahoo's mobile division isn't the last step in this process, either.  Pforzheimer told Duryee, "The importance of mobile in Yahoo has increased and we are re-aligning the organization to do just that."

Meanwhile, a completely unrelated thing that's also gotten the mobile world all excited is the first iPad commercial, which aired during the Oscars.

UPDATE: Pforzheimer provided an extra bit of information in an email to WebPronews, adding, "Yahoo! seeks to be the center of people's online lives. We have more tightly integrated our mobile business into the company's DNA as we create the best possible user experiences for our consumers and partners regardless of device or access point. As the adoption of Yahoo!'s mobile services continues to grow globally, mobile continues to be a key priority for the company."

Last summer, Google announced that it would be acquiring video compression technology developer On2 Technologies. A couple weeks ago, Google announced that the acquisition had closed. Upon the completion of this acquisition, the nonprofit Free Software Foundation, whose mission is to "promote computer user freedom" and "defend the rights of all free software users," wrote an open letter to Google, telling the company that it now has the opportunity to "make free video formats the standard, freeing the web from both Flash and the proprietary H.264 codec."

WebProNews contacted the foundation to find out if Google had responded to this, and Holmes Wilson, Campaigns Manager for the foundation told us that while he had heard from one Google employee on the matter, he didn't think it was an official response.

"You shouldn't have to mess around with bloated, unstable, proprietary plugins like Flash just to play a video-- video playback should be built into your web browser," Wilson tells WebProNews. "There is a huge movement behind open standards and free formats working to make this a universal reality. If Google freed VP8 and pushed it out to users on YouTube, that would be a big boost to this movement.  And it would accelerate progress towards a web video space where we didn't need proprietary plugins and patented codecs."

We asked Wilson how it would make life easier for a business trying to expand its online video marketing strategy. "The free HTML5 'video tag' standard makes posting a video to your site as easy as posting an image, but it's not supported by a critical mass of users yet," says Wilson. "Google freeing VP8 and pushing it on YouTube would give us a critical mass. So it would make life much easier for anyone trying to reach others with video."

Google paid about $124.6 million for On2. The company also recently acquired mobile email app reMail, which it did make open source last week.


The Free Software Foundation's letter can be read here.