What technology can do: gigacam pic of Obama's inauguration

Click here for the Gigapan picture of Obama's 2009 inauguration in which every face in the vast crowd can be made out using the sort of sci-fi technology you see in Google Earth satellite shots.

And the police are bleating because we might capture their pretty faces on our cameras? What a total diversionary cheek!

John Williams together with Yo-Yo Ma on cello, Anthony McGill on clarinet, Gabriela Montero on piano and Itzhak Perlman on violin.

The inauguration, if you can stretch your memory back that far, was where in best Milli Vanilli tradition it turns out the classical band were miming to a soundtrack. Itzhak Perlman looked like he was in some sort of ecstatic reverie, so overcome with the sense of occasion was he, and the pianist, Gabriela Montero, wore mittens to protect her hands on an icy midwinter's day. Yes, the whole pantomime was most impressive. But unlike the Beijing Olympics when one little girl was lip-synced by another little girl, and the whole of the west rose as one to condemn it, we heard very little about this subterfuge.

At least the glorious Aretha was keeping it real.