NEWSWEEK asked descendants of key figures in civil rights history to write letters to their ancestors describing their thoughts and feelings about the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. And to add to the record, we’ve collected letters from students and notable figures to Obama, and discussed the power of words with will.i.am and the inaugural poet.

Newsweek Video | Beyond Words: Two Heirs to Two Great Americans.

Google Maps and Google Earth are the centerpiece of NYCGo, a new information and reference project launched by the New York City government to provide resources to both visitors and locals. Wednesday’s launch announced the debut of NYCGo.com, a Google Maps-fueled local search and reference site, as well as the unveiling of the renovated New York City Information Center a few blocks north of the tourist-heavy Times Square district.

NYCGo.com contains not just Google map and search data, but also travel deals from Travelocity and local content from what-to-do powerhouse Time Out New York, nightlife culture magazine Paper, the New York Observer, and eco-living guide Greenopia.

The information center, located on Seventh Avenue between 52nd and 53rd streets, is equally Googly. The city’s technocratic mayor, Michael Bloomberg, even contributed a guest post to the official Google blog to announce it: “The Information Center features interactive map tables, powered by the Google Maps API for Flash, that let you navigate venues and attractions as well as create personalized itineraries, which can be printed, emailed or sent to mobile devices,” the blog post explained. “Additionally, there’s a gigantic video wall that utilizes Google Earth to display a 3D model of New York City on which you can map out personalized itineraries.”

Bloomberg has been aggressive about promoting tech initiatives during his time in office, from a wind power plan (part of the much bigger “GreeNYC” project) and a city-run venture firm. Under his watch, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Google opened its New York satellite office, taking over several floors of the historic former Port Authority building downtown.

A side note: the video provided by Google shows the “interactive map tables” in the new information center, and they look a whole lot like Microsoft Surface units. But they aren’t, a representative from NYCGo tells us. They’re custom-made.

Google powers new NYC information hub | Webware – CNET.

BERGEN-BELSEN, Germany — Habbo Knoch, who runs the new Bergen-Belsen Memorial at the former concentration camp, invited various scholars and museum directors to a four-day conference here last week called “Witnessing: Sites of Destruction and the Representation of the Holocaust.†He asked a question one evening during a break: “Will people in 20 years look back and say we built a museum that focuses on Nazi genocide while Darfur was happening? Will they ask whether anyone raised this issue?â€

Consider it raised.

The new memorial is an immense concrete and glass museum emerging from a copse of trees beside the cemetery of mass graves (there are more than 70,000 bodies buried there), which had been the camp site. The permanent exhibition is a model of its kind, focused on the meticulous and sober reconstruction of the past. From time to time the present literally intrudes with a bang, though, when practice rounds of tank fire from the British military base next door boom over the treetops.

VIEW COMPLETE STORY HERE:

Abroad – The Bergen-Belsen Memorial Museum Views the Holocaust Not From Then but From the Here and Now – NYTimes.com.