Gary Hustwit, celebrated filmmaker and director of the "Design Trilogy" (no, not that one), the movie Rams and producer of many other documentaries has just released a short called The Map, documenting the journey of the MTA in their efforts to create a map of NYC's subway that updates in real time, no small feat for a 100+ years-old transit system that still operates on many analog systems.
Not only the map, just released a few days ago, is a beautiful piece of design, but it also varies the amount of information it displays depending on how zoomed-in you are, as elegantly demonstrated in the short film.
It also puts an end to the raging debate between Vignelli's and Tauranac's supporters as to whether the subway map should be a geometric, abstract and simplified version of the system, aimed at making complex information easier to digest or a geographically-correct version of the system, more complex, but perhaps a little more intuitive to relate to from a wayfinding-in-the-real-world point of view.
What's fascinating in this case is that technology is able to reconcile both ideologies by using the best of each to make a map that easily and intuitively adapts to the scale and location, cleverly revealing all the information that's needed at a given scale, but no more.
As much as I may routinely bitch that big data is evil in many ways, this is a case where more data helps the system and its users to function better, especially since there is no need to collect any personal or identifiable data to make it work.
Like any tool, new technology and data aren't inherently evil, but it's just the use we make of it that makes it so. There are many examples of new technologies and companies out there that understand this and manage data like the superpower that it is, but still too few in my opinion.