10 brilliant things to do on the web this fortnight
Explore coral reefs in Google Maps
Google has added stunning images of six coral reefs to Street View, giving you the opportunity to do a little virtual scuba diving around some of the most beautiful underwater locations on the planet. The reefs include three in Australia – Great Barrier Reef, Lady Elliot Island and Wilson Island; two in Hawaii – Hanauma Bay and Molokini Crater; and Apo Island in the Philippines. Happily, these new images are free of the technical glitches that plague Apple’s maps (see below). There are no wobbly reefs, swimming camels or sunken cities, although Google hasn’t blurred the faces of the turtles, as you can see.
See Apple’s mapping mistakes
Websites weren’t slow to catalogue Apple’s horrendous mapping mistakes in iOS 6. The link above takes you to the Daily Telegraph’s gallery of cartographical catastrophes, which include a wobbly Battersea Bridge, a melting Clifton Suspension Bridge, rivers that emerge from nowhere and the relocation of Berlin to Antarctica. You’ll see more errors at the Huffington Post. Can you find Stratford-upon-Avon?
Watch colour video from 1902
Without realising it, this macaw made film history by starring in the first known moving colour images. Filmed in 1902 by British photographer Edward Turner, the footage had lain forgotten in a tin for 110 years. The National Media Museum in Bradford has restored the footage, which also includes clips of Turner’s children and soldiers marching in Hyde Park.
Tour Camp Bastion in AfghanistanYou can take a virtual tour of Camp Bastion, the Britishrun base in southern Afghanistan, on the BBC’s News site. It’s fascinating to see where 30,000 servicepeople are stationed, although for security reasons you can only see a ‘graphical representation’ of the base. Enter your postcode and you’ll see how big the base is in relation to your local area.
Read Wikipedia offline on your Kindle
Wikipedia now lets you download pages in the EPUB format, which means you can read them offline on your Kindle, as well as on phones and tablets. To do this, click ‘Create a book’ under Print/ Export on the left-hand side of a Wikipedia page, then follow the instructions to use the ‘book-creator’ tool
See Transformers fight in Street View
www.transformersonyourstreet.com We’ve already seen Disney’s Goofy enter our homes in Street View (www.giantsteps20.com). Now you can watch Transformers, the noisy ‘robots in disguise’, fight outside your house. Just type your postcode, then sit back and watch the carnage unfold. You can share the resulting video mayhem with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
Discover your web ‘personality’
mirror.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk The National Media Museum has been busy. As well as restoring the world’s first colour video (see opposite page), it has launched this intriguing test that examines whether your online ‘personality’ reflects your real one. Just answer a few questions on your web behaviour to find out. The results are beautifully presented.
Listen to music in Amazon Cloud Player
Launched 18 months ago in the US, Amazon Cloud Player is now in the UK. It’s a mobile music library you can listen to on phones, tablets, PCs and laptops. Every album or track you’ve bought from Amazon .co.uk, and any you buy in the future, will be automatically added. Also, Amazon’s ‘scan and match’ technology sees what tracks you have in iTunes and Windows Media Player, and then imports them from Amazon’s music catalogue to the Cloud Player. However, only the first 250 ‘imported’ tracks are free. After that you’ll need to pay £21.99 a year, which gives you a hefty limit of 250,000. For information on the Cloud Player app.
Listen to The Why Factor podcast
This brilliant new BBC radio series explores everyday questions that you often find yourself pondering. The first three episodes answer such curious questions as why people wear ties or get tattoos. If you have an inquisitive mind, and watch TV shows like QI, you’ll love it.
See 5,000-year timeline of global wars Starting with the Kurukshetra War of 3000 BC (in modern-day India), this wonderful interactive map charts 5,000 years of human conflict, going into detail by picking out battles within wars. Just scroll along the timeline at the bottom.
FIRST LOOK Nook e-reader
There are two Nook e-readers on sale now: the Simple Touch, a touchscreen device that costs £79 (£10 more than Amazon’s cheapest Kindle); and Simple Touch with GlowLight which, at £109, is the same price as the touchscreen Kindle. We got our hands on the GlowLight, which has an impressive screen light that makes reading in the dark very easy. The GlowLight technology comprises a row of LEDs along the top of the e-reader, which shine down when it’s turned on, illuminating the whole screen.
It’s ideal for reading in bed, with the bedroom lights switched off, or on a summer’s evening when daylight starts to fade. You won’t need to strain your eyes to read the text, and pages turn very quickly. You’ll definitely have enough to read on it – US bookstore chain Barnes & Noble, which makes the Nook, will have millions of books, magazines and newspapers available to buy. It feels lovely to hold, with perfectly designed grooves your fingers grip comfortably. It’s slightly thicker than the Kindle, which makes it feel firmer in your palms.
Barnes & Noble claims the battery will last one month with the light switched on, although we didn’t use it long enough to test this. Our main concern is that the screen is a little delicate – we unintentionally scratched the display when putting it into a bag, which created an unmistakable bright patch. You’ll definitely need to buy a case to protect it. There’s no doubt it’s a brilliant e-reader. However, if you already have a Kindle, it’s only worth buying if you’re desperate for an e-reader with a built-in light. If you’ve yet to buy an e-reader, and have a bit of spare cash to spend, this is a great choice. If a backlit screen is a must, then you should definitely buy it now, because there’s still no news on when Amazon’s backlit e-reader, the Paperwhite, will reach the UK.
