SPIEGEL Surfs the Web: Mirror, Mirror on the Web

WatchingAmerica.com holds the mirror up to America, as seen from abroad.

Holding up an international mirror to see how other countries view one's culture isn't always an easy thing to do, especially if you're an American looking to Europe or a European looking to America. But it's a necessity -- whether we like it or not. A useful new Web site -- and our readers in the diplomatic corps may want to bookmark this -- provides a daily portal of news about the United States in the English language from the foreign press. The stories reflect attitudes that are different from those found in Washington and can often give interesting insights into the way America is viewed abroad. In cases where sites aren't available in English, Watching America also provides some translations.

Search and Enjoy: Google Games

Google is a pretty useful tool, but programmers are also taking it as a stepping-off point for making some more light-hearted diversions. Googlebattle is a head to head match of serach terms, the winner being whichever is more popular. Guess-the-Google pulls images from Google and asks you to guess which search term was used to find them. The creator of Guess-the-Google also made Montage-a-Google, which creates a montage from any search you enter.