Cinema

Now you can find out everything you wanted to know about a film before you go to watch it. In addtion to future blockbusters routinely being advertised on the web, the Interactive Movie Database, www.imdb.com, now offers the opportunity to evaluate all pros and cons before you decide to spend your time and money watching a bad film. Currently, the database has information about some 150,000 movies, from the Lumier brothers' Locomotive to the latest hits of Kronenbers and Fincher. In addition to detailed reviews, biographies of actors and film directors, the site's powerful search engine will keep you informed about the latest news of the show-biz world, like what is showing in Thailand, what Brad Pitt eats for breakfast, what happened to Madonna's favorite dog and how to produce your own film.

Travel & Sports

Nowadays you do not have to buy a ticket to Hawaii to feel the power of the waves or the gusts of the sea breeze. With www.aloha.com you can dive into the ocean of virtual reality and come to the surface somewhere beside the gliding yachts with colorful sails awash in sea-foam. This site however is not for those wishing to test their strength, stamina and willpower fighting the ocean, but for those who get their adrenaline by watching others do it.

Professionals will not be disappointed with the site www.hifly.com where they can learn about surfing's history and get more information about surfboards and other wave riding accessories.

Beverages

If it wasn't popular enough, the French are doing their best to popularize their national drink, champagne, at www.champagne.fr. Demonstrating their traditional courtliness, the French have provided the site with English and German versions to inform those who happen to live far from the Champagne province or who just wish to know more about the drink. Visitors to the English version are offered two options to choose – Discovery and Millenium. The Discovery banner will lead you through historical, ideological and philosophical aspects of champagne as well as drinking rituals and everything related to what the site's creators call an elegant lifestyle.

Festival

Once every several years the small German city of Kassel hosts a festival called Contemporary Art Documenta. The festival is rated among the most competent and important in its field and includes the rapidly developing direction of net-art. Regular contests are held to select the most interesting net-art projects, and the results are presented at www.documenta.de.

Fashion

Occasionally, fashion and technology go hand in hand, especially when it comes to design. Some elite fashion designers use computers to design clothes, instead of drawings. Still others experiment with forms inspired by cyber-punk utopias. Prada, for example, loves to draw fancy red bands on NASA spacecraft ready to fly to far-away galaxies and Paco Rabann is preparing for a technological end of the world. The most creditable, however, are those who harmoniously combine a healthy interest in technology with common sense. One of the brightest representatives of the latter is Sonia Rykiel – www.soniarykiel.fr – the elegance of haute couture on the Internet!

Image

These days, Russian actors don't have to go to Hollywood to be discovered. Now they can put their photo and all relevant information on www.russianactors.com for all the world to see and skip the difficult process of having to figure out how to go west.

Language

Encyclopedia Britannica entered the world of virtual reality last Fall. The print edition which consists of more than 30 volumes and costs several hundred dollars is now available free at www.britannica.com. The interactive version of the world famous encyclopedia is much more functional and easy to use than its hard-copy parent. A convenient search engine allow users to retrieve information very quickly, that is, when the rest of the world isn't trying to gain access as well. The site is so popular, the server is often slow.

Art

The international metropolis New York is famous not only for its Latin Americans, Russians and Chinese quarters, supermarkets and downtowns but is also known for New York Museum of Modern Art. The museums collection includes more than 100,000 pictures as well as thousands of films, books and other achievements of modern culture inside. If you don't have the time to get to New York, you can use the Internet and wander through the virtual halls of the museum at www.moma.org The site also includes web projects supported by the museum and an online shop for those who wish to buy souvenirs.