Google has announced a new tool called Google Public Data Explorer that’s now available in Google Labs. The tool is a follow-up of sorts to last year’s announcement that a limited amount of public data would be used in response to certain Google.com search results.

The Data Explorer tool includes data from the original three sources Google announced last year — the US Census Bureau, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the World Bank — as well as five new data providers:

• Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)
• California Department of Education
• Eurostat
• US Center for Disease Control
• US Bureau of Economic Analysis

The gee-whiz element in all this is the Data Explorer’s use of animated charts and graphs that let users see changes over time. The charts are also embeddable on any web site; here’s one that shows population growth rates in a few countries since 1960, and how the numbers compare to world population growth rate.

Related Topics: Google: Labs

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