Beijing Today (July 28, 2006)

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BEIJING TODAY

Multimedia art blasts Beijing’s bourgeois Page 12

Seychelles: the ultimate island escape Page 21

Dealing with BO: advice not to be sniffed at Page 19

Italian woman dies in Chaoyang knife attack Page 2

Digital guide puts China in your hand

A nation’s grief China mourns peacekeeping hero killed in Israeli bomb blast

Du Zhaoyu

FRIDAY JULY 28 2006 NO. 269 CN11-0120 HTTP://BJTODAY.YNET.COM

CHIEF EDITOR: JIAN RONG NEWS EDITOR: HOU MINGXIN DESIGNER: ZHAO YAN

Du Zhaoyu was one of the four who were killed when an Isareli bomb was dropped on their observation post in Lebanon. His family flew to the wartorn country yesterday evening to bring his body home and friends paid their respects in Shandong

Province, his home town. Here, UN Indian peacekeepers carry the body of their colleague after the UN post in al Khiam village near the Lebanese Israeli border was bombed during an Israeli air raid on the villages in south Lebanon.

By Chen Shasha Carol Decker, the lead singer of the 80s pop power balladeers T’pau, once crooned “...your dreams are China in your hand.” Thanks to a technological breakthrough, life is imitating art with the launch of Cityguide-Beijing. It’s a service providing international visitors with comprehensive city information via mobile phones, a website and a call center. Cityguide-Beijing is a mobile electronic version of the Beijing Travel Handbook. It features multimedia information and onetouch dial for human operator services. It can supply information on dining, shopping, accommodation and transport whenever needed. The mobile unit can provide digital interpretation, speaking Chinese when asked, to help non-natives communicate with taxi drivers and wait staff. The information in the mobile unit is carefully cataloged. Take dining for example, a search for food can be conducted based on tastes or ingredients. “Foreigners don’t quite understand what the food is from a pinyin romanization of its name in Chinese,” said Sun Lin, from Capinfo Limited Company, which launched the Cityguide-Beijing project. The mobile unit can also offer handy tips on thing like water drinking and using chopsticks. “More than one hundred foreigners took part in a trial of the mobile units and offered their comments on the service. After that, 25,000 everyday sentences and famous place names were selected and added to the digital vocabulary, based on the tester’s feedback. The Cityguide mobile service is planned to be multi-lingual, and will eventually be available in English, French, Spanish and Japanese versions. The service can be accessed by visiting nicebeijing.com or calling 5851 5568, where you can either search for information about Beijing or rent one of the Cityguide-Beijing mobile units. Rental is US$5 per day.

Under the auspices of the Information Office of Beijing Municipal Government Run by Beijing Youth Daily President: Zhang Yanping Editor in Chief: Zhang Yabin Executive Deputy Editor in Chief: He Pingping Director: Jian Rong Price: 2 yuan per issue 26 yuan for 3 months Address: No.23, Building A, Baijiazhuang Dongli, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China Zip Code: 100026 Telephone/Fax: (010) 65902525 E-mail: bjtoday@ynet.com Hotline for subscription: (010) 67756666 (Chinese) , (010) 65902626 (English) Overseas Code Number: D1545 Overseas Distribution Agent: China International Book Trading Corporation


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