Torque for mapping temporal data by Nathan Yau.
From the post:
Mapping data over time can be challenging, especially when you have a lot of data to load in the beginning. Torque, the new open source project by CartoDB, is a step towards making the process easier.
Torque allows you to create beautiful visualizations with big temporal datasets by bundling HTML5 browser rendering technologies with a generic and efficient temporal data transfer format created using the CartoDB SQL API. Torque visualisations work on desktop and ipads, and work well on temporal datasets with hundreds of thousands or even millions of datapoints.
Isn’t data always mapped over time?
Data always originates at a time, observed at a time, recorded at a time (by an observer, mechanical or otherwise), is valid through a time, etc.
We may omit time for some reason or purpose but that is our choice.