From our pals at Google:
Google has launched a search feature that makes it easy to find and compare public data.
If you
enter terms like “unemployment rate” or “population” followed by a U.S.
state or county, you will see the most recent estimates.
"The data we're including in this first launch represents just a small
fraction of all the interesting public data available on the web. There
are statistics for prices of cookies, CO2 emissions, asthma frequency,
high school graduation rates, bakers' salaries, number of wildfires,
and the list goes on. Reliable information about these kinds of things
exists thanks to the hard work of data collectors gathering countless
survey forms, and of careful statisticians estimating meaningful
indicators that make hidden patterns of the world visible to the eye.
All the data we've used in this first launch are produced and published
by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Division. They did the hard work! We just made the data a bit easier to find and use.
Since Google's acquisition of Trendalyzer
two years ago, we have been working on creating a new service that make
lots of data instantly available for intuitive, visual exploration.
Today's launch is a first step in that direction. We hope people will
find this search feature helpful, whether it's used in the classroom,
the boardroom or around the kitchen table. We also hope that this will
pave the way for public data to take a more central role in informed
public conversations."
For more information about how to use this new feature click here.
