Artist and storyteller Jonathan Harris has created a graphical depiction of the world from a conglomeration of daily new headlines on the Web. His interactive Web site, called Universe, launched Tuesday.
With the tool, people can see a visual image of events, organizations, individuals or concepts that dominate the news on any given day, week or recent year. More importantly, it shows the relationship of these news items, or "stars" in the galaxy, to one another. For example, President Bush on Tuesday is at the center of a constellation in this virtual galaxy, surrounded by stories and images of his recent visit to Guatemala, news of his wife Laura Bush, and of House speaker Nancy Pelosi warning off sending more troops to Iraq.
Universe is a proof of concept for Daylife, an upstart Harris co-founded and that launched in February. Daylife scans thousands of news headlines and blogs, and then organizes them into networks of noteworthy topics linked to the most prevalent people, places and organizations mentioned in the articles.
Photo by Universe.daylife.com
