We love R users, and for a while now we have known that R users would probably love CartoDB. Getting the two together has taken some time and our commitment to that goal is far from over. But today, we are happy to show off our first attempt at helping more R users to analyze and share their geospatial data, our new R package for CartoDB.

This week we’ve been experimenting with balloon mapping. Sense Maker (the team behind the Air Quality Egg and other projects) donated helium for the EcoHackNYC, and there was some left. After the first tests, and thanks to the big help of Liz and Leaf from The Public Laboratory, we flied our own balloon over the office in NYC.

We spent yersterday’s Earth Day at our offices in NYC trying to do balloon mapping, a nice way to end an intense EcoHackNYC weekend. It is the second time we co-organized this (un)conference. Last fall we gathered at NYU and this time we met at Parsons.

The Award Ceremony for the NYC BigApps3.0 competition was held yesterday. Ninety-six apps were submitted to this city-run contest that encourages developers to play with government data. There were 4 apps, that we know!, using CartoDB:

It is not a secret that one of the reasons we created CartoDB was the lack of alternatives for geospatial data visualizations. For several years we developed our own custom solutions to visualize large amounts of dynamic data, or to develop location aware applications. Many geospatial applications run on top of the fantastic PostgreSQL/PostGIS database, but most of the software built to use them on the web end up being slow or don’t access the full potential of PostGIS. Also, a lot of them are proprietary and include very tough terms of service. We wanted to create a software that would explode the possibilities of PostGIS while keeping it Open Source, scalable, customizable and leaving you the owner of your own data.

Last Wherecamp in SF was very fruitful. We met Steve Gifford, an experienced software developer and the creator of WhirlyGlobe, an Open Source 3D globe engine for iPad. WhirlyGlobe take cares of managing the globe with the performance of OpenGL, and allows you to overlay data on top of it.

What a month, we just finished Where conference and we are ready to attend another conference. This time it will be the great FOSS4G North America Conference in Washington DC.