The art of Googling (unreal, unbelievable, human achievement, artistic, Auckland, New Zealand)

A US artist who cannot afford to travel is using Google Street View to visit stunning locations around the world and capture them in paint.


Bill Guffey, 45, from Burkesville, Kentucky, has spent hundreds of hours travelling thousands of virtual miles to visit places he will never get to in person.

He has walked through every state in his home country as well as England, Scotland, Italy, France, Switzerland and Portugal.

After electronically hiking through some of the planet's most beautiful spots, Mr Guffey sits down to paint them at his home studio.

He has created over 100 paintings of scenes including a red phone box in Trafalgar Square, a lonely house in Scotland, a yellow taxi in New York City, and a canal boat in Amsterdam. His pieces sell for up to £1,500.

Mr Guffey said: "Having to look after my family and hold down a job have meant that my travelling days are numbered.

"Street view has really changed everything for me because it means I can go to all of those places I am in love with, sit and paint them as if I am really there.

"Travelling is what really does it for me. When I was younger and single I travelled around Europe and other countries across the world and it is the best thing I have ever done.

"Now that I have become a painter I would love to revisit some of those places and capture them in paint. But for the present, Google is an amazing substitute.

"We have always been able to look up pictures of famous buildings and places around the world. What's great about street view is that I can go to those places I would go to myself, to those places where tourists don't normally go."

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Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 preview (Cell, mObile, phone, PDA, tech, review, report, David Lim)

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 has been in the center of attention ever since its first unofficial shots leaked online. Much like most other gadgeteers, we've had our hands itching to get one and luckily our wishes just came true.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 is one impressive device full of industry leading features - it's the first Windows Mobile smartphone with an 8 megapixel camera and WVGA video recording and it's actually the first ever full QWERTY phone to have that sort of imaging prowess as well.

The XPERIA X2 most other features, though not as innovative, are a nice match as well. We guess they are worth going through one more time.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 at a glance:

* General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/1900/2100 MHz, EDGE class 10, HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
* Form factor: Slide-and-tilt QWERTY touch phone
* Dimensions: 110 x 54 x 16 mm, weight 155 grams
* Display: 3.2" TFT resistive touchscreen, 800 x 480 pixels
* Platform: Qualcomm MSM 7200 528 MHz processor
* OS: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
* Memory: 110MB storage, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, microSD card slot
* Camera: 8-megapixels auto-focus camera, LED flash, touch focus, geotagging, face detection, image stabilizer, Smart Contrast, WVGA@30fps video recording
* Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, TV-out
* Misc: Optical trackpad, accelerometer for motion-based gaming, office document viewer and editor, XviD video support
* Battery: 1500 mAh Li-Po battery

We just got the XPERIA X2 and we wanted to share with you our first impressions of the device. So consider this article as a quick and dirty preview, with a more detailed one coming up in the following week. We hope to get as much as possible from our encounter with the X2 and you can bet we surely won't keep anything to ourselves.

The XPERIA X2 should be available in two colors - Elegant Black and Modern Silver. There's hardly anything missing from the broad range of connectivity options. Perhaps the only two things it seems to lack are the FM radio and the automatic screen rotation. Yes, there's an accelerometer on board alright, but the screen doesn't auto rotate to match the orientation of the handset.

While the XPERIA X2 uses the vanilla Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, the thing that sets it apart from competing products is the X-panels interface. X panels have gone a long way since the XPERIA X1 and have turned into a full featured system for using various animated and interactive homescreens. But we'll get to that further down.

Anyways, enough talking, let's get to some walking. Jump on as explore what the XPERIA X2 is made of with even a brief rundown of the interface later on.

Lock Your Spot before 15 May, 2010 and change your life 360 degree from 16 May 2010. It will change the way you feel, act and live! Tell your friends now or someone else will!

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£350,000 for the world's most expensive dog (world, record, costliest, pet, buying)

A Tibetan mastiff with the catchy name of Yangtze River Number Two has reportedly been sold to a woman in the Chinese province of Shaanxi for around £350,000, making it the most expensive dog ever.

The previous record of £90,000 was paid out by a family in Florida for Lancelot Encore - a cloned version of Lancelot, a much-loved but deceased Labrador.

The Times reports that Yangtze River Number Two's new owner, identified only as Mrs Wang, is rumoured to have spent years searching China for the perfect Tibetan Mastiff. When she located her dream dog in Qinghai province, she was determined to do whatever was necessary to make it hers.

The canine's newfound celebrity status was confirmed when a motorcade of 30 luxury cars turned up at Xi'an airport to collect it. Mrs Wang's wealthy friends sent their Mercedes limousines to the airport, and also organised a welcoming committee of local dog-lovers, complete with banners.

Dog-ownership is becoming increasingly popular in China, and is already causing problems in some of the country's over-crowded cities. A ban on pets in many public areas is being considered in Shanghai, while the city of Guangzhou has introduced a limit of one dog per family.

 

Flowers at Northcote, North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand, NZ, David Lim

Colorful flowers at Northcote, North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand. When I take the picture, it was brigh sunny day at the end of winter 2009. Nokia N95 8GB used for this shot.