Andrew asked: These blocks of color are auto generated from the massive data points, or are they customized through more coding? (slide 15)

Answer: These maps are called Thematic or Choropleth maps. The commercial GIS programs like ArcGIS, MapInfo Pro, Manifold and others make it very easy and fast to create these thematics. Most of the work lies in preparing the data for such a display technique. Some of the open source GIS programs struggle with creating thematics- they can do it but it's often a little clunky in my experience. We have a Thematic Tutorial under development here so check back soon.