Web watch

Explore here
MSN Explorer, a replacement for Internet Explorer, is finally available in a UK version. It is worth a look not just because it is simpler and prettier than IE. It is designed to deliver a more integrated, more family-friendly AOL-like experience, and can handle up to nine users. Naturally it plumbs you in to many of the Microsoft offerings that are central to its planned evolution from a software supplier into a net-based services company. Unlike AOL, of course, Microsoft does not have your address and access to your bank account, but it will get those when you start paying for enhanced services. Download MSNE from http://explorer.msn.co.uk

Google view
Google, the best search engine for finding relevant texts, will soon be the best for finding images, too. Google is now running a beta test version of its image search engine, and I have already found it more useful than the long-running Alta Vista service. Try Toro PlayStation, for example: Alta Vista is all over the place while Google is on the money. Make your own comparisons here: http://images.google.com or http://images.altavista.com

Movie seen The Erotic Witch Project is the most popular movie on the Movieflix site, but there are more than 350 alternatives. Some are very short experimental films. Others are full length features like TEWP. More mainstream offerings include Theatre of Blood with Vincent Price, The Chinese Connection (Bruce Lee), The Night Porter (Dirk Bogarde) and Heidi. You have to register but the films are free. www.movieflix.com

Untitled
Google's image search works on the title of the picture and the content of the surrounding text. A much more interesting approach is being tried at Untitled, "a collective of experimental image makers". You can search for images by emotional, formal and technical features as well as by subject area. Searching for a bold, passionate, unified, harmonic pop art illustration on a space theme produces 326 results, mostly irrelevant, but you can always commission something. The user interface is appalling. See http://212.187.225.138/

Ask who?
You have tried Ask Jeeves and exhausted Ask Jack. Now you can Ask Oxford: "an exciting new website from Oxford University Press designed to help you with all your language queries". Or rather, you can't: the questions are canned, unless you want to mail one in. However, the site's mixture of quizzes and trivia is at least better than a naked promotion for OUP books. But if you still have a question, Albert is the one to ask. Go to www.albert.com and click Demo to try the natural language interface. The third-party search engine finds some fantastic stuff. (Why Albert? After Einstein?)

Moo music
You can get away with almost anything if you make it funny enough, and musical trio RmT pushes sexual perversion further than Old MacDonald in I'm A Cow, from their latest CD, Eden. RmT (Riddle Me This) is based in Texas, but the Flash animation that goes with the song is available worldwide. See www.riddleme.com/html/cow.html

Music notes
Neumu is a promising new music site launched by Michael Goldberg, once of Rolling Stone. The 0.5 beta version is, unfortunately, a top candidate for "bad sight of the week" because the text is almost unreadable by people with impaired eyesight. Until the designers discover usability research, there is a solution in Internet Explorer. Go to Tools, select Internet Options, click the button for Accessibility, and put ticks in the boxes for Ignore font styles specified on Web pages and Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages. With View|Text size|Larger, Neumu becomes an entertaining read. See www.neumu.net

Gene scene
What is life? The answer is not on the BBSRC's site, exactly, but there is a lot of stuff about genomics, biodiversity and similar topics in the Science of Life exhibition at the BBSRC site. It is so slick, you might think the BBSCR was a pharmaceutical giant. In fact, it is the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, funded by the government's science budget to "promote public awareness of biotechnology and its relevance to everyday life". See www.bbsrc.ac.uk/life

New & noted

• World premier, Saturday, Royal Festival Hall, London: a celebration of Arthur C Clarke. See http://thecityandthestars.com

• Big Brother fans can now tap into the second US series at www.cbs.com/primetime/bigbrother

• The Tattoo Baby Doll Project: www.daintytime.com/tattoo

• Street basketball goes from Gameswatch to Web watch in a Flash extravaganza: www.nbastreet.ea.com

• "The UK's ultimate guide for people with disabilities": www.4dp.com

• Love, life and email: sign up at www.handbag.com/arts/emailsoap/

• Best-ever image of Mars: http://heritage.stsci.edu/public/2001jul/big.html

Six of the best Language translators

Babel (Systran)
http://babel.altavista.com

More pairs
www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran

Do it better
www.freetranslation.com