When Google says that they want “to organize all the world’s information,” they’re not kidding around. Today, Google launched Art Project, a wonderful collection of features that allow you to explore the world’s greatest museums and works of art, from your home, using Google’s Street View technology (for exploring the insides of the galleries) and hi-res photography (to explore the individual works of art).

Here is their video, introducing you to the project:

And here is a look “behind the scenes:”

This project absolutely kills most of the proprietary software I’ve seen put out by educational companies for museums. It’s free, powerful, and empowering; an absolutely great project that brings great works of art to everyone with an internet connection.

I can’t wait to spend more time walking the halls of the worlds greatest museums and building out my own collection of priceless digital replicas.

This morning, it appears that Google has decided to honor the invention of the laser with another one of their nifty logo tributes.

On May 16th, 1960, Theodore Maiman demonstrated the first laser. At the time, he was quoted as saying, “A laser is a solution seeking a problem.” He had no idea that it would eventually be used for brain imaging, measurement, burning, etc.

Are they at least ill-tempered sea bass?

P.S. I always love these Google tributes. Last year I wrote a post one the Valentines Day logo that looked like it said “Googe”. That post melted down my server until I installed caching. I guess everyone else likes these things too.

Resources:

• Maiman’ s obituary article in the International Herald Tribune is the source of some of the info in this post. It’s worth a read.