buUuk 2.0 - Express yourself with a buUrp Version 2.0 of buUuk the Singapore iPhone food guide made it into the App Store today. There’s a bunch of new stuff in the app including: - add restaurants by sending a photo - a section for newly opened restaurants - easier sharing of information with other users But we’re most proud of buUrps. They’re kind of like tweets for food. In fact we’ve integrated with twitter so that any buUrps, as well as appearing in the app, also get sent to the buUuk twitter timeline and the users own twitter account, if they so choose. buUrps can include photos as well as text and provide a way for users to interact and discuss particular locations, or just share simple information like “long queues at Aston’s tonight”. If you’ve got an iPhone you can get the latest release now through iTunes. If you’re not an iPhone user you can still partake of the buUrps by following buUuk in twitter. buUuk 2.0 - Express yourself with a buUrp Version 2.0 of buUuk the Singapore iPhone food guide made it into the App Store today. There’s a bunch of new stuff in the app including: - add restaurants by sending a photo - a section for newly opened restaurants - easier sharing of information with other users But we’re most proud... ...... buUuk - Find Singapore Restaurants using your iPhone buUuk has just become available in the iPhone app store. buUuk is a location based app for the iPhone which contains information on over 4000 restaurants and bars in Singapore. It’s a free download from the iPhone app store. You can find it here. For those of you without an iPhone I’ve posted... ...... buUuk - Find Singapore Restaurants using your iPhone buUuk has just become available in the iPhone app store. buUuk is a location based app for the iPhone which contains information on over 4000 restaurants and bars in Singapore. It’s a free download from the iPhone app store. You can find it here. For those of you without an iPhone I’ve posted a couple of screen shots. (Disclaimer: buUuk is partly a SinGeo production…). Reverse Geo-coding Singapore Google have got me all excited, no posts for over a month and now two in a day. With the revelation that we now have geo-coding in Google Maps for Singapore, I thought I’d try reverse geo-coding (going from lat/lng to address rather than the other way around). No real surprise that it works. But playing with it shows just how good the geo-coding is. I’ve built a quick map so that you can try it out. Click anywhere on this map and you’ll see the lat/lng and address details returned together with some other data. If you’re interested in the accuracy, this is from the Google Maps API documents: 0 Unknown location. 1 Country level accuracy. 2 Region (state, province, prefecture, etc.) level accuracy. 3 Sub-region (county, municipality, etc.) level accuracy. 4 Town (city, village) level accuracy. 5 Post code (zip code) level accuracy. 6 Street level accuracy. 7 Intersection level accuracy. 8 Address level accuracy. 9 Premise (building name, property name, shopping center, etc.) level accuracy. The best way to check the coverage is to choose “hybrid” view, zoom in and click on an individual building. Or use the “map” views if the map has the building footprint for the location your interested in. Reverse Geo-coding Singapore Google have got me all excited, no posts for over a month and now two in a day. With the revelation that we now have geo-coding in Google Maps for Singapore, I thought I’d try reverse geo-coding (going from lat/lng to address rather than the other way around). No real surprise that it works.... ...... Singapore Postal Code and Street Address Geocoding makes it into Google Maps I wrote a few months ago about Google playing the long game with Google Maps in Singapore. Back in July they started adding building footprints and now they’re finally getting on top of their geo-coding deficiencies. I haven’t done any extensive testing, but it seems that 6 digit Postal Code geocoding is now supported, in addition to full address geocoding. So for example, if I search in Google Maps for the postal code of one of my favourite local eating places, 428893, it gets it pretty close (after I tell it I mean “428893, Singapore, Singapore” - is there another Singapore in the world I don’t know about?). If I put in the address, 187 East Coast Road, it gets even closer. This is a great step forward, up until now the lack of good geo-coding has been the one area where Google Maps is deficient compared with it’s local competitors. In particular, plugging the geo-coding hole will be of enormous benefit to anyone developing their own mashups. Let me know how the geo-coding works for you, do they have full Singapore coverage? Here’s a Google my map showing the results of my searches described above. View Larger Map Singapore Postal Code and Street Address Geocoding makes it into Google Maps I wrote a few months ago about Google playing the long game with Google Maps in Singapore. Back in July they started adding building footprints and now they’re finally getting on top of their geo-coding deficiencies. I haven’t done any extensive testing, but it seems that 6 digit Postal... ...... Singapore Flight Information on your iPhone If you’re an iPhone user, you can now get access to Changi airport flight arrivals and departures from a webapp. Just load isinjet.com into your browser and away you go. If you already use isingeo.com on your iPhone it’s also available there under the “Travel Information” section. Type in a flight number. Get the status…. Singapore Flight Information on your iPhone If you’re an iPhone user, you can now get access to Changi airport flight arrivals and departures from a webapp. Just load isinjet.com into your browser and away you go. If you already use isingeo.com on your iPhone it’s also available there under the “Travel Information”... ...... Google Street View coming to Singapore? It would appear so, according to this cnet article which says the Google car has been sighted in Singapore. I’m not entriely convinced about the practical value of Street View, but it’s great fun and I’m sure some interesting applications will emerge once it’s here. If... ...... Walking Directions for Singapore in Google Maps (unless your using an iPhone) The wisdom of the crowd seems to suggest I’m wrong, but I see no point in driving a car in Singapore. So the Google Maps directions feature has been of limited use to me, since its focus has been driving directions. The option to avoid highways gives some control that provides simulation of a... ...... Using WiFi to locate your Mac If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user, you may have wondered how the Google Maps application is able to locate you even when your inside a building and GPS doesn’t function. One way in which this is done is to use WiFi router locations. A company called Skyhook Wireless has built a... ...... The quickest way to book a Singapore taxi on your iPhone You probably already know that you can book a taxi in Singapore using SMS. Just send your location (address and/or postcode) in an SMS to 71222. To make this service easier to use on an iPhone I wanted to have an icon on the Home Screen to allow “one-touch” taxi booking. It... ...... Singapore Bus Times on your iPhone One of the problems with using SBS Transit’s iris real-time bus arrival information has been the cumbersome interface on mobile devices. Now Deepak Sarda of Sounds From The Dungeon has produced a mobile interface that allows you to quickly find out the arrival of all SBS Transit buses for a... ...... More Singapore locations to map on your iPhone iSinGeo.com now has more locations. Recently added are ATMs, bank branches and AXS Stations. If you have an iPhone give it a try and let me know what you think. Just point your browser to http://isingeo.com, locate yourself and find things near you. The full list of available locations is... ...... Map of Confirmed Station Locations for Singapore’s MRT Downtown Line The map of the planned MRT Downtown Line has been updated to reflect the confirmed locations of the stations as described by the LTA. ...... All of Singapore’s HDB Blocks now in Google Maps? Google have continued adding more building footprints to their Singapore maps. As far as I can tell, the footprints are of all the HDB blocks, no other buildings are currently marked. So looking at Marine Parade yields the HDB footprints in the area but Marine Parade Library is missing: View Larger... ...... This one’s just for the geeks and transitlink.com.sg Since my last posting about TransitLink’s integrated Singapore transport planner and it’s inability to perform, I came across this paper from some Microsoft researchers about scaling web-sites to handle traffic surges. This isn’t only a TransitLink problem the SLA Street Maps site... ...... TransitLink Singapore’s Public Transport Journey Planner - don’t bother… As promised in the recent Singapore Land Transport Review TransitLink have announced a multi-modal Public Transport Journey Planner. Unfortunately it doesn’t work, at least for me right now. Maybe Saturday lunch times are an unusually busy period, or the publicity the launch has attracted has... ...... Google Playing the Long Game with Google Maps in Singapore There’s now quite an array of alternatives for on-line Singapore street maps, hopefully we’ll soon start to wonder what was so great about streetdirectory.com. Google Maps for Singapore has been available now for around 18 months, the most popular posting on this blog is this one from... ...... Navigate Singapore on your iPhone with iSinGeo.com I’ve just launched a web based application for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) that lets you find stuff near you in Singapore. The intention is to provide location data and maps for people on the move around Singapore, primarily either using Public Transport or walking. The application allows... ...... New Singapore Bus Map - All singing, all dancing…. The Singapore Bus Stops and Bus Services Map available here, has now been updated, it now includes all the bus services in Singapore from: and a whole lot more bus stops, there are now over 4500 bus stops on the map (the previous version had around 3000). This has necessitated a change in... ...... Singapore’s New Hole in Google Maps The Straits Times reported today that an 8 metre by 7 metre hole has appeared in Cornwall Gardens. The hole has been created by subsidence as a result of boring work being done for the MRT Circle Line. I haven’t yet seen the hole in question, but by looking at the planned route of the Circle... ...... Burma/Myanmar Cyclone Data in Google Earth The UN Institute for Training and Research Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) has data on the path of the recent cyclone Nargis and the resultant flooding. The data has been made available (courtesy of Google) as a Google Earth layer which can be downloaded here. For those that... ...... The Sorry State of On-line Mapping in Singapore - A Review of Yellow Pages Here’s the third in the series of reviews, this time it’s the turn of Yellow Pages. As a reminder, in each site review I try to do the following: find my address, find the Golden Village cinema at Vivo City, calculate a route between them and email appropriate links to a friend.... ...... The Sorry State of On-line Mapping in Singapore - A Review of rednano.sg In the ongoing quest for a useable on-line mapping site for Singapore. Here’s a review of the rednano.sg site. As a reminder, in each site review I try to do the following: find my address, find the Golden Village cinema at Vivo City, calculate a route between them and email appropriate links... ...... The Sorry State of On-line Mapping in Singapore - A Review of SLA StreetMap Streetdirectory.com is back on-line but without its Maps. They have been refused application to appeal against the latest ruling against them. They are planning to take their case to the Court of Appeal and apply for a stay of execution to allow them to re-instate the disputed maps on their... ...... Streetdirectory.com - Where The Streets Have No Name Singapore’s popular on-line mapping site streetdirectory.com is back on-line as they promised. But they seem to have a small problem, they have no maps. Currently a search for a location results in an empty green box where the maps used to appear. I assume this is a temporary technical... ...... The Sorry State of On-line Mapping in Singapore - Part 1 Part 1 - The Demise of Streetdirectory.com Singaporeans have now had ten days to get used to the loss of streetdirectory.com. As of today the site continues to display a letter to “Dear Beloved Users” (presumably these are the ones they didn’t sue…) and no maps. The downfall... ......