News What happens if the Olympic Torch goes out? How does it travel? How will traffic be during the Olympic Torch Relay? These are some of the top questions about the Olympic Torch Relay that people across the world have searched for on Google today We know that thanks to an interactive visualisation developed by Google News Lab in California “It’s a fascinating snapshot of what people are thinking in that moment,” says Simon Rogers, data editor at the Google News Lab “​People really want to know everything about the torch - where it is made, who designed it and so on ” Google Street View gives users look inside Rio 2016 venues Every day the visualisation pulls an updated list of top trending Olympic-related searches worldwide, providing a window into the zeitgeist of each of the 95 days of relay “The questions change day by day,” Rogers explains “On the day Muhammed Ali died, people asked about when he had carried the torch ” (It was for the Atlanta 1996 Games ) The infographic tracks searches across the world plus in the region of Brazil where the torch is that day “In Brazil, the questions are often very local: how will the torch affect my traffic, when does it pass near where I live, and so on,” he explains In addition to displaying search trends, the visualisation locates the torch on a map of the relay route, and tracks the relay progress on a timeline The code powering the infographic is open source As the host country, Brazil has the highest search interest in the past month across the entire world The United States is a close second ​Other countries among the standouts are Greece (where the torch relay started,) Japan (which will host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020) and the United Kingdom (which last hosted the Games in 2012 ) As the Rio 2016 Games near, Rogers’ team is working on other exciting visuals to leverage search interest in the Olympic Games “​We w​ill provide a data hub for the Olympics which will collect fascinating data from across Google on how people are searching for every single athlete and sport,” he said The Rio 2016 editorial team is likewise betting on the power of interactive visualisations as a storytelling tool “One of our goals is for spectators who aren’t physically in Rio to be able to have an immersive Olympic experience, “ says Adriana Garcia, Rio 2016 communications director “Interactive storytelling - be it via virtual reality, data viz (visualisation) or other tools - is the way to do that,” she adds ‘Drone Week’ promises new views of Rio 2016 venues and insights into emerging technologies Mariana Santos, the journalist who spearheaded the design of the interactive visualisation published by Google News Lab, will come to Rio de Janeiro and contribute to Rio 2016’s interactive storytelling efforts “A full immersion in the Rio 2016 newsroom will allow us to tell the stories as they happen, especially those heavy on data points where we can engage and instruct the sport lovers,” she says