Jonathan J. Harris has executed a nifty bit of software titled 10×10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time. He sez, 10×10™ (‘ten by ten’) is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10×10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.
One downside is that the data is currently gathered only from Reuters World News, BBC World edition and NYT International News feeds, which leaves the “news” with a certain bias, but the method and the layout certainly boots one out of the usual page by page news reading habit.