Since it's MIT, there's data behind the beauty. Over 138 countries came together, more than half the countries in the world. The biggest international callers were Canada, Great Britain, France, and Puerto Rico. In the US, California, Florida, New York, Texas and Georgia topped the list—all but GA are in the top 5 most populous states. Georgia cracking the top 5 is interesting since it's only the 9th most populous. It and other Southern states saw the biggest increases in call activity overall—over 12x the norm.

This might be my favorite visualization though, a bonus version that shows the "emotional flow" of inauguration across the country, with spikes in calls represented by states pulsing toward you:

And below that is what it looked like in Washington, D.C. during the inauguration:

Whoever thought data could be so alive? Be sure to check out the whole project at senseable: [MIT senseable city lab via 10000words]

Due to January 20' "wicked cold" (Mr. Ma's words), the inaugural planners decided to roll tape for "Air and Simple Gifts" with the intent of avoiding frozen fingers or rapid de-tunings causing a John-Roberts-scale fuckup on the world stage.

I can't say that I blame them at all. Itzhak is getting up there in the years, and he's earned a bit of slack. Apparently inaugural tunes are always pre-recorded to avoid just such a mishap; interesting to note, though, that the Marine Band's "Hail to the Chief" was broadcast live and direct. Semper Fi! [NYTimes]

Containing over 2GB of photo data and comprised of over 220 images shot from a Canon G10 Bridge camera on a Gigapan robotic camera mount, David Bergman's incredibly detailed panorama is filled with pieces of information that you previously weren't able or bothered to see. Some are just obviously cool—nearly being able to read the sheet music on performers stands, seeing the comically varied expressions in the VIP area behind the President as he speaks—but others are more subtly awesome.

Take Yo-Yo Ma snapping a picture on his iPhone, the unreal number of personal digital cameras or the endless, imposing banks of photography equipment surrounding the event from every conceivable angle. Sorry CNN, this is cooler than Photosynth. Tell us what you find in the comments. Full screen view here. [David Bergman via Cult of Mac]

That's according to the law enforcement junkies at Officer.com, who are carrying a McClatchy-Tribune story that quotes law enforcement officials saying Obama would wear "bullet-resistant clothing" for the inauguration.

While this could just mean some standard kevlar, we agree with our friends over at Slate's Explainer that it's much more fun to hypothesize an actual bullet-resistant suit, tailored to Obama's exacting standards. Slate points to the wares engineered by the intrepid Miguel Caballero—the Colombian designer known for dressing international journalists in his anti-assasination fashions and then firing guns at them.

I'm assuming Barack's test fitting wasn't quite so dramatic. But hey, bullet proof clothing—from the Medellín mean streets to Washington! [Slate]

Update: The Vice TV guys, makers of fine hipster travelogues, wrote in to remind us that they've been shot by Miguel too. More good stuff.

Microsoft's Photosynth is cool tech, stringing together a big bucket full of photos of a single event and arranging them in a zoomable 3D space by looking for common reference points. Here we're only working with 140 photos though, but CNN says they're going to keep working on it, adding in as many of their crowdsourced pics as possible. It's up for Silverlight zooming here where it will hopefully keep getting bigger. As you may remember, CNN set the ridiculous bar pretty high with their election night hologram, so it's going to take a little more to get a rise out of us jaded couchsurfers now.

Meanwhile, John King looks like he's still best in the business at providing the most 100% mind-numbing commentary while manipulating a touch interface of some kind on cable news.

We'll keep a look out for more CNN inaugo-tech. Grandpa Wolf has also been touting a satellite photo "specially ordered" for the occasion.

"Is that from one of those Predator drones?" asked Anderson a few minutes ago. "No, it's a satellite" replied Wolf, without a hint of amusement. Cable news tech at its finest, folks. [CNN's The Moment]

Update: We knew this wasn't the beginning of the Inaugo-tech train. SuperQuickZoom!

Update 2: It's getting bigger. Who's that in the crowd, Twittering live? @SCHWARZENEGGER!

Update 3:And behold, the promised satellite photo. Looks like...er....Google Maps! John King says this is the "fastest non-military turnaround of a satellite image." Mmmhmm.

The designs include two shirts inspired by the now famous Shepard Fairey "HOPE" poster, and two others entitled "Obamac" and “OS X, Software We Can Believe In." Head on over to FastMac now if you want to get in on this one day deal. [FastMac]

New Scientist has a full gallery, but my favorite is definitely the aforementioned truck. The Bomb Containment Vessel can be used to transport a live bomb safely, and it's strong enough to have the bomb explode in its belly if need be. It won't be used, in all likelihood, but it sure is fun to know it's there. [New Scientist via Dvice]

* On a side note, Kodak is one of the last standing American camera manufacturers, alongside Polaroid. It's like the Cadillac limo for Obamas under 16.

A great story from George Stephanopolous: Before coming onstage, before going to church this morning, he went to his national security briefing, as he has for the last couple of months. What made this different from every other briefing though, is that at the end, a man with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist told Obama how to launch a nuclear strike using the codes inside.

Obama won't get the card to launch the nukes until he is officially sworn in, but as George Stephanopolous remarks, "the true transfer of power has begun." [ABC News, Image: MSNBC/AP]

They have every single character there, from his wife Michelle and his daughters Malia Ann and Sasha—the youngest resident of the White House since JFK Jr—to Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill, President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, VP Dick Cheney and wife Lynn, George Bush Sr. and Barbara Bush. as well as Dr. Rick Warren.

The fun thing is that every single one of them can actually be recognized (specially Barbara Bush, that's genius), according to Lego designers who did the brick caricatures of the main characters as well as Senator Dianne Feinstein, Aretha Franklin, John Williams and performers Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo-Ma, Gabriela Montero, Anthony McGill, the Unites States Marine Band, the San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Even Oprah Winfrey is in the crowd.

You can see the Lego Presidential inauguration at Legoland California until Memorial Day.

First, the vital info. The actual swearing in ceremony takes place at 11:30am EST and will go for about two hours.. There are lots more options listed on Lifehacker, but these are the ones that are probably most worthy of your time.

Live Streaming Feeds
If you don't have access to a TV, but don't have to worry about the corporate gestapo monitoring your every web movement, live streams of the inauguration are probably the way to go—and they're plentiful. From the sounds of it, there are two good choices:

• Live Senate Feed: The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies' stream is about as official as it gets, with not only the live inauguration available, but also clips to past inaugurations and an overload of supplementary content on anything tangentially related to the event.

• CNN/Facebook: There was nothing more quality/entertaining/ridiculous than CNN's coverage of live events during the 2008 Presidential Campaign (pundit debate scorecards, holographic projections, Toobs!) and from the sounds of it, the CNN/Facebook live inauguration feed will be no different. You log into Facebook direct from CNN's live site, watch the inauguration, and watch your friends' status updates in real-time.

• There's also Hulu, but they're streaming the network which shall not be named.

Non-video Web 2.0 Updates
• InaugurationReport.com: If you can't get away with video at your desk, but can hide some text/photo updates behind a tab, you might want to consider InaugurationReport.com, which takes all the citizen generated content from Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and SMS, then aggregates it all on one page. It's your one stop shop for quick desk updates.

Mobile Web
If you do suffer the misfortune of being under heavy surveillance, then your only option left is to consider a new job grab your iPhone/G1, fake a lengthy trip to the bathroom, and use one of these services from the comfort of your stall:

• Ustream on iPhone: Ustream promises to stream the inauguration to your iPhone using their fancy new app...IF it manages to get approved by Apple before tomorrow. And considering that's a big if, I wouldn't place all your inauguration viewing hopes and dreams behind this.

• Inauguration Report on iPhone and Android: Inauguration Report also has free iPhone and Android apps where you can not only take in all the same content as the desktop client, but you can also provide live updates if you have any. However, seeing as you've resorted to hiding in a bathroom stall, I doubt you'll have any.

And as I've already mentioned, you can get the whole laundry list of online Inauguration offerings over on [Lifehacker].

Having cell troubles at large public events is something we've all experienced, but the inauguration crowd, which could top out at around two million iGeneration texters and tweeters, will likely bring every DC-area network to its knees. That's why all of the major carriers are spending millions for this one day, bringing in extra COWs and COLTs (cell on wheels, cell on light truck) to beef up bandwidth. The NYTimes talked to most major carriers, and it's interesting to hear all that goes on behind the scenes for a big event like this. Sprint claims they've been planning for the inauguration since April.

Despite the networks' best efforts, Grandpa Gene Kimmelman of the Conusmer's Union (publishers of Consumer Reports) says it's not enough:

“It’s like paying for an all-you-can-eat buffet and discovering there are only scraps left,” Mr. Kimmelman said. He suggested another way the carriers might spend their millions of dollars: “Maybe they should offer a rebate if they cut usage on Inauguration Day.”

Funnily enough, the NYTimes, is one of many news outlets is one of many with open calls for citizen reports filed via smartphone from the field. Oh the paradox of media in our connected age! [NYTimes]

All you have to do is take a picture (under 10 MB), send it into themoment@cnn.com, and then wait for Microsoft's 2D to 3D software to compile the whole thing. It's gimmicky, sure, but not in the same way as the "holographic" nonsense on Election Night. This could turn out legitimately cool; PhotoSynth is a very capable piece of software and with the volume of photos that CNN could gather, a 3D compilation would be a real looker. So if you're planning to be in D.C. on Tuesday, show those stodgy CNN people how we take a photo here at Gizmodo. [CNN, photo by AFP/Getty]

The political applications, sadly, tend to swing pretty far to the side of app absurdity:

Obama/McCain Inauguration Countdown: Tick down the days to January 20 for the candidate of your choice, complete with rotating quotations and photos. Also useful for reminding yourself that the one and a half years of inane campaign coverage on TV will soon be over. Sadly, they're a buck.

BAC Calc: Ahh, but here's some utility for the weekend. A blood-alcohol-level calculator to quantify exactly how hammered you've gotten while getting riled up by McCain and Obama quotes with your buddies. Just enter your consumption, alochol volume of your booze, your weight and your gender. But remember kids, the law won't care if your iPhone says you're under the limit once you find yourself in the drunk tank. Free

Beer Bounce: And once all your friends go home on Monday night, there's no sense in stopping the party when you've got Beer Bounce, the first virtual quarters game for the iPhone. As you progress through the rounds, difficulty is increased by adding blurriness and staggering to the game. Nice touch! $3

Blofeld: While it has nothing to do with anything, really, Bond fans will have to love the concept behind Blofeld. It places an image of a feline pelt on your phone, and purrs when you stroke it, evil genius style. I can't believe this costs a dollar, but again, hats off to the concept, especially the icon.

Earthscape: And just when you thought the App Store was only filled with meaningless pap, there's Earthscape, which brings a great-looking Google Earth-style satellite image browser to your phone. It's a little laggy at times, and the image quality isn't as high as GMaps, but a great way to kill a few minutes if you're stuck in line somewhere. $5

This week's app coverage on Giz:

• Tris, the free Tetris game, was pulled from the store (voluntarily) for copyright violations. Infinite sadness.
• Our Question of the Day found that a typical Giz reader has spent between $1 and $10 on apps, but with many bigger spenders also responding. Go vote if you haven't yet.
• A fairly harmless comic app Murderdrome was rejected from the store, and its creators want a rating system for apps to avoid censorship, which is a great idea.
• A quasi-hologram app looked awesome, but later turned out to be just a proof-of-concept simulation, although its creator wants to make it into reality.
• And the Android Market, Google's answer to the App Store, was officially announced and does not require an approval process to get listed.

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see what you missed last week and check our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good long weekend everybody.