Google Street View opens the door to artGoogle have used the technology driving its Street View service in the Google Art Project, which allows users to virtually explore some of the world’s biggest museums and view art collections in high resolution. Make that very high resolution, with images presented in up to 14 billion pixels.
February, 2011
Tea is hot hot hot in NYC
The New York Post has reported on a crazy new trend currently brewing in NYC: hot tea! It appears as if - gasp! - drinking tea is the new “in” thing, with Lady Gaga and Jake Gyllenhaal among the humble beverage’s celebrity endorsers.
amber podast
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Video 
Angry Birds in real life
Are you one of the millions of iPhone users addicted to Angry Birds? A group of Americans with way too much time on their hands have constructed real life Angry Birds sets. Funny or tragic? You decide.
My Cup Of Tea: The plan to provoke a profound shake-up to the arts
A new report from the Australia Council has big implications for Australian cultural policy, says Ben Eltham. Its conclusions imply a profound shake-up in the current status quo.
Read The Daily online for free, without an iPad
Rupert Murdoch’s iPad only “newspaper” The Daily can now be read online for free without an iPad. All the stories - including covers for each section - are indexed and uploaded on a new site called The Daily: Indexed .
healthcare 
New models of mental health care: an alternate view
On Croakey last November Leonie Young outlined plans to introduce a new model for mental health care into Australia. However, Professor David Pilgrim warns that human misery requires more than a narrowly clinical response.
The battle for Egypt
Crikey wrap: Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak no longer wants to be leader, but fears his country is too unsteady to abandon. But with ten left dead after fighting in Tahrir yesterday, the country is already in chaos.
film reviews Sanctum — beyond wishy-washy
With James Cameron attached as executive producer, the cave diving disaster pic Sanctum is the first Australian made 3D blockbuster. And what a horrible, horrible way to kick off the genre, writes Luke Buckmaster.
New York bans smoking in parks and beaches
The New York City Council has voted to ban smoking in 1,700 city parks and along 14 miles of city beaches. In addition to parks and beaches, the bill also prohibits smoking in other areas such as pools and recreation centres.
Will word nerds become the next national heroes?
The academic field of linguistics is hardly something that leaps to front of Aussie minds when thinking of sources of national pride. But based on the scorecards handed out to Australian universities this week, it seems like Australia is punching well above its weight in linguistic research.
A tale about donations and a flood of political emails
Don’t blame me, they just put my signature on the letters. That was the Tony Abbott reaction to criticism that a Liberal Party email sent in his name ended with a link asking people to donate to a campaign against Labor’s flood levy, writes Richard Farmer.
Wikileaks A peace prize for Julian Assange
Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard might be willing to see Julian Assange end up in a foreign jail but Norwegian lawmaker Snorre Vale thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, reports Richard Farmer.
iPhones in hand, they rushed to the scene of Yasi devastation
TV coverage of cyclone Yasi became the Race for Tully this morning as it slowly dawned on waking Queensland and Australia that the community was one of the worst hit overnight. The ABC was left on the starting block.
Gina Rinehart’s rise is just beginning
The crowning of Gina Rinehart as Australia’s richest person on Forbes magazine’s Australian rich list, with a fortune of $9 billion, is a historic moment for female entrepreneurship in this country.
Thorpe’s ‘many medals for Qantas’ — just a dash for cash?
“I’m not motivated by money, if I was I would not have stopped swimming,” Thorpe said yesterday. That didn’t deter some members of the pubic from dismissing the comeback as merely as a dash for cash, reports Crikey intern Sophie Cousins.
Right ‘used delaying tactics’ to ensure McGuire got the gig
A member of the Victorian ALP’s powerful administrative committee has accused leaders of the party’s ruling Right faction of deliberately delaying preselection for the Victorian seat of Broadmeadows to shoehorn Frank McGuire into state parliament.
Not surprisingly, New Zealand gets an election date
It’s a difficult week to get publicity for anything other than Egypt or cyclone Yasi, but New Zealand prime minister John Key chose yesterday to announce the date for his country’s next election.
Virgin, military jet near miss … now Virgin wins Etihad-Europe deal
Two days after nearly losing a 144-seat jet that narrowly avoided a collision with a military target practice jet near Newcastle, Virgin Blue has finally won approval for an alliance with Etihad, which gives it faster flights than Qantas to many parts of Europe.
Thorpe comeback: Jordan-esque success or Schu-like failure?
Why do sporting greats make comebacks? Because they’re competitors who get off on competing and never really get used to a world where the adulation and applause has died down, writes Back Page Lead’s Charles Happell.
Maley: inflation builds, but US too fragile for rates rise
Inflationary pressures are now clearly building in the United States and Europe, but central bankers will be extremely reluctant to raise interest rates for fear of jeopardising their fragile economic recoveries, writes Karen Maley, of Business Spectator.
Egypt protests: bread, freedom and dignity the aim
While some of the pro-forces are clearly legitimate, there are genuine fears that many are government stooges, perhaps even paid to destabilise the country, writes Vickie Smiles, from the Egyptian city of Alexandria.
Christmas Island detention unsustainable, says Ombudsman
The current scale of immigration detention operations on Christmas Island is unsustainable and more asylum seekers should be processed on the mainland, says the Commonwealth Ombudsman in a report released today.
