If you’re reading this blog regularly, then you might remember reading here about a year and a half ago about how Helsinki Public Transportation is outfitting their buses, trams and metros with GPS devices so that you can track their whereabouts online in real time. For that post I’ve also included a screen grab where you could see a few vehicles moving in Helsinki downtown. Although the map looked a bit deserted, the promise of seeing that map full of movement, seemed wonderful. Back then they’ve promised to outfit all of their vehicles by the end of year 2008. I have paid another visit to see what has happened during this time.

This is a screen grab of the Public Transport Map today.

Quite busy. Now the image actually resembles the dynamic of the public transportation. Since I know there are a lot more buses than there are blue bus icons on this map, it seems that the main emphasis so far have been trams. Or it might have been a strategic decision not to show all the buses. Indeed, the map could become unintelligible had they decided to show all bus action. Everything considered, a very nice improvement. Particulalry when compared to the Web 0.5 attempt at providing a similar service for Ljubljana public transportation.

Besides bringing all those vehicles online, they have also added several very handy features.

First of all, now you can access the information about vehicle arrival times for all of the stops. Which is great. Going to town? Key in the name of your nearest stop, click the stop and voíla, you get a list of all departures for the next half an hour or so. Very convenient.

Besides stops, you can also use the map to look up streets and popular places in Helsinki. Just for the hack of it I entered rautatieasema, the Helsinki central railway station. The map zooms in and becomes chock-full of bus, tram, train and metro stops. There are literally dozens of them. Clicking any shows a real-time list of arrivals. Impressive and functional.

Having GPS in your pocket is great, although most of the time I know where I am and don’t really need it until I go hiking. Now, to know where that bus I’m waiting for is, that is something I want to know. I think that Helsinki Public Transport Map is a fantastic example of converging technologies delivering an entirely new value.

That said, the project is not flawless. Here are some of the things that would be great to see.

Color code the stops. Right now the bus and tram stop icons are almost identical. There’s no easy way to glance at the map. Rather you have to go pixel hunting to tell the difference between tram and bus stops. I know that they are using the standard symbols you can find in the city, but these are of little use on the net where you do not see tram tracks. The user should be able to tell the difference at a glance. The solution is really trivial: color coding. Why not use dark blue for bus stops, dark green for tram, orange for metro and red for trains? And while at it …

Unify symbols. It would be useful if the symbols for all types of transportation would be unified. Now bus and tram look too similar, but metro uses something completely different. Not to mention that for the local trains the bus symbol is used (as you can see in the image to the right) and in some cases for the trams too. It is confusing. Similar look and feel reduces the need to dissect information–it becomes immediately obvious.

Make it finger friendly. Wherever there are a lot of stops in a small area, it is excruciatingly difficult to click exactly the one you need. It can be a nerve-wrecking task to do so with a mouse, and is probably impossible to achieve on your sleek iPhone even with the tiniest of pinkies out there. It won’t cause any fat finger dailing, but is still annoying. Either add another zoom level, or add more space between stations even if their representation on the map should be true to reality.

Remove the Google layer. Since Google powers the map service, Google’s own layer of some tram and metro stops is shown. This does not provide any additional information—it only adds clutter. To add to confusion, the ones Google provides are almost always shown in the wrong location. Go figure. Getting rid of this layer would solve the problem.

Tower of Babel interface. Well, not really, but as it is now, the interface randomly mixes English and Finnish. Why not separate the two completely? And while at it, add Swedish too.

Documentation. The interface and functionality are without a doubt transparent to the developers, but less so to everyone who would find this service useful. Write a brief help. It helps to disambiguate functionality and adds confidence to the user.

I hope that they will address these in the near future. In the meanwhile, I’m looking forward to the next version.

Mladen

Currently super popular pop duo The Ting Tings played in Helsinki a couple of days ago. I’m not a fan of pop, but it was nevertheless interesting to see a relatively freshly baked band live on stage.

They definitely put together a very energetic stage act. I mean, even their roadie probably had to go through an audition. He was constantly burning rubber as he erratically darted around the Tings untangling cables and setting the mic stands with great haste. He had put together a mini show of his own. It seemed they were all on speed or something. Impressive, man.

All that was just fine, but boy do I hate it when bands run out of tracks and then start repeating what they had already played that very same night. The last time that happened was some 15 years ago when for reasons unknown to me I ended up on the Spin Doctors concert (must have been paid to see it or something). Same here, The Ting Tings miss even shrugged her shoulders as she admitted they had run out of tracks after only 35 minutes and had to replay a number.

But check out their support act, the retro-electro nerd Moby Dictator. Seriously, when was the last time you’ve seen an electro artist perform on stage without a laptop, or two?

Mladen

Helsinki offers a rich palette of fine restaurants, delis and cafés. Of course, there are also uncountable quasi-food on-the-go vendors. That’s not the type of chow I have in mind today–not the kind you’d eat only when drunk on a Friday night and the kind that leaves that unmistakable aftertaste at least until Monday afternoon for even greater embarrassement not only in front of your spouse, but nosy colleagues too. Not of that ilk.

If you swear by Michelin stars, you’ll find such eating places too. But that again is not what I’m aiming at. Some time last week I spoted a tad odd ad in the newspapers that pierced my brain. It was an advertisement for a café in Helsinki offering a house hamburger for an unfathomable price of 21€. I had to rub my eyes twice before I could be sure those numbers were written in that order.

I cut out the ad and was on a mission to find out what does it feel like, both in the mouth and in the mind, to eat a 21€ hamburger.

I walked past the Kämp café umpteen times, but was never drawn to it enough to cross their doorstep. Although the café seems to be a rather insignificant part within the Kämp imperium spanning from luxurious hotels, and restaurants to bars, spa and what not, it is not at all timorous in this company. Quite the contrary, the café shines in its neoclassical interior decoration and bourgeoisie clientele. Not exactly my kind of thing, but all I have on my mind right now is the burger.

It was Saturday afternoon and the place was packed. I was stunned. But there I was, at the mercy of a waitress trying to find an available table. I couldn’t have ever imagined that I’d need to make a table reservation for a hamburger meal. After I was seated, she handed me the menu, which I did not really need, since I’ve known for days what exactly I came for: Garçon, bring me the Kämp hamburger. What would I like to drink? Bring me whatever goes well with your burger. I got Coke. Surprised? A bit, but when I come to think of it, what else could I have expected. A glass of 2000 Château Cheval Blanc?

The burger arrives. Chef de cuisine even branded the thing; it sports a large K burnt right on top of the bun. It didn’t come from McDonald’s, that’s for sure. I take a couple of snapshots and dig in.

Ground beef replaced with thin slices of marbled fillet of beef, lettuce upgraded to fresh rucola, undisclosed sauce promoted to horseradish mayonnaise. And besides laying these ingredients between two pieces of bread, they actually cared to tell me what I’m eating. Not to mention the fries made out of real potatoes.

The verdict? It tasted alright, it landed in the stomach with a loud thump, but I managed alright. However, I wonder if my friends from the land of the burger would still consider it to be a burger with all these peculiar ingredients.

Bon appétit.

Mladen

Pixar’s 20 Years of Animation exhibition is currently on display at the Tennispalatsi art museum in Helsinki. I went to see it and all I can say is, if you’re anywhere close to Helsinki, you can’t afford to miss it (and hurry up, because exhibition’s next stopover is in Seoul).

Although most of us might not have been as radically inspired by Pixar’s animated movies as those kids who flushed their fish down the toilets after seeing Fining Nemo (to save them, of course), characters and stories created at Pixar are quite impressive when it comes to suspending our disbelief. Sure, cars and fish usually don’t talk humanese, but great characters and their believable expressions make us forget we’re watching cars and fish.

Anyway, I can imagine that most see a movie, either like it or not, but don’t give much thought to how it was made. This exhibition, however, provides such introspective opportunity; you get to see how Pixar’s characters and stories are conceived, developed, re-developed many times before they are polished, even sculpted and only then modeled and rendered. I was stupefied when I found out that three quarters of production time is spent just developing the characters and story, and only a quarter turning those ideas into a movie.

From what Pixar shows us in the exhibition, it definitely must be a dream job to work on their projects. They travel all over the place, some even had to learn how to scuba dive to be able to envision more realistic imaginary worlds. It must be a dream job most can only aspire to.

Besides abundance of quick sketches, conceptual drawings, detailed character sculptures and even some high art-like framed paintings, exhibition offers two brilliant gems: a superb four-projector wide journey through two decades of Pixar’s work and a large mesmerizing zoetrope full of Toy Story characters. The zoetrope itself is an unbelievably dazzling display of magic of bringing static figures into motion. I’d never get tired of it even if I had one at home.

For those who can’t make it to the exhibition, get a glimpse of the spinning marvel here.

Mladen

One of the most annoying things when traveling these days is finding an open wireless Internet access. You’re in a foreign town, wanting to check your email, see what’s worth a visit and check out what’s on tonight, but you can’t find the net access anywhere.

Alternative to looking for open wi-fi signs, which are rarely posted or barely visible, is to fire up your notebook and walk around. It works, but it is both incredibly inefficient and a bit dorky.

I was exhilarated when I learned about a year ago that Helsinki city center is quite efficiently covered with free wireless Internet spots courtesy of the city of Helsinki. So next time before you visit Helsinki make sure you make a screen-grab of the Helsinki WLAN hotspots map.

I’ve heard that the cities of Vantaa and Espoo, which together with Helsinki make the Helsinki metropolitan area, have started planning a similar free Internet access too. But don’t hold your breath as it might take a couple of years before it materializes.

Alternatively you can also check the Omakaupunki service provided by Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. Yes, the service does sort of resemble Steven Johnson’s fantastic Outside.in, but is not just yet as valuable and user-friendly. (By the way, it would be nice if guys and gals at Outside.in would expand their service to Europe at some point, wouldn’t it.) Unfortunately the Omakupunki page is only in Finnish, but you should be able to find your way around by following this link displaying the free WLAN spots around town.

However, I must also mention a couple of favorite spots that I frequent when in Helsinki: Kiasma and Sanomatalo. Both are smack in the center, just a stone throw away from the railway station and both stunning pieces of architecture absolutely impossible to miss. But what I like best about them is that both are semi-public covered places, which is perfect when it’s raining or cold (which in Helsinki is often).

Internet being the new TV in terms of how easily you can spend time (waste, really), make sure you actually go out and explore Helsinki too.

Mladen