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.

Starting with data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Division, Google are using Flash to allow users to chart and analyse unemployment or population statistics. While you’re able to create links to your view of the data, for the moment it’s not possible to embed them in other web pages.

It’s clear that Google have plans to add plenty more datasets to the service which, given it comes from the engine behind the famous Gapminder system, could have a big impact on how easily we can interpret data.