Chips in fish

I feel a sudden disgrace to associate myself as a Singaporean when I read of such reports. What is wrong with the educational system that probes the intrinsic curiousity of kids when you just get some machines to feed all the info to them!

"Gone are the days when visitors are happy looking at animals and matching them with the information on the sign boards," Chew said."

Reuters

Shoes that show you the way

German designer Martin Frey has come up with a pair of shoes that aim to make this possible. His CabBoots tilt their soles to direct the wearer. The video below shows the squashy soles tilting to either side to make the user feel the edges of their virtual path.

Link

Pics from Iceland

The land that is known as ice and fire, very different from other European cities we've visited. Only thing "negative" abt touring here would be things are so expensive, even based on London standards. The city is very clean & people typically speak gd English. The lifestyle is very laid back. Shops opening hours are short & little activity on wkends, besides the cafes/bars etc. Long hours of daylight means you can spend more time outdoors, but at the same time, little to see/do within the city itself. Should definitely drive out of Reykjavik to see the natural landscapes, good if you like the nature, and hiking is probably the next best way to get close to the amazing surroundings...& always ensure you have sufficient petrol, as we realised there aren't too many petrol stations once you drive out further. Very "intense" when the refuel lamp is switched on & we are still on mountain roads. Highly recommended, not for the rotten sharks meat though... :)

Link

Save the whales

Join Greenpeace and make your voice count towards protecting the whales.

The future of the whales will be decided in Anchorage, Alaska, in a couple of weeks time. A meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will decide if whales will be hunted or protected.

Make your voice heard

As a committed Whale Defender, we need you to make your voice heard once again. The key governments in the debate need to hear from you that you demand that the International Whaling Commission works to protect whales.

You can help by letting the key governments going to Anchorage know that you expect them to be working to defend the whales.

Send your message here

New Multimap website

The new Multimap website has gone live! (click on the link on the top left on the current site). IMHO I think this will really move the mapping arena to the next level. I really like the way information is presented to the users in the relevant way, with Points of Interests, ability to store your history and favourites, the useful A4 print friendly pages and some of the old functions that was available of the old site, i.e. booking of hotels, are really useful! The inclusion of eBay is probably another first for a mapping site (disregarding the mashups that uses google maps and eBay API), on top of the hybrid function which Multimap had for years before the rest of the mapping sites decided to do something similar. It might start a new trend of users who want to save shipping costs and use the maps to see where are the nearest items. Users can even select different types of maps by hovering their mouse over the map button (Although I think that's abit of an Easter egg!). The availability of weather, local information on each pan is a real nice feature as well.

Another key feature which is not obvious to the user is the convergence of web and mobile mapping! By indicating your mobile phone number when registering (really works only in UK atm), you will be able to do the same location searches on your mobile phone as well, and even the ability to retrieve what the user has stored as their Histories and Favourites from the web. If you are lost, you can just text a simple message and find out where you are! Extremely useful for those late night outs! I actually find it really useful if you are in need of trying to find a place, which is exactly what happened to me over the weekend I had when I pulled in a map of the flat that I was viewing by texting "mymm [postcode]" and it returns me the exact map that I would be seeing on the web, minus the screen size - which was not that bad on my N73.

I am extremely excited how the new site will be received by the users and look forward to the feedback.

BTW - It even works fantastic in Singapore - see attachment, and not displaying some closest relevant search results like what Google does if they do not find something.