sights, 
theatres, 
beer
gardens, 
bars, 
cinemas,
cafes,
restaurants,
museums,
walks,
clubs,
galleries,
bicycle
hire, 
river cruises.
sights,
theatres, beer
gardens,
bars, cinemas,
cafes,
restaurants,
museums,
walks,
clubs,
galleries,
bicycle
hire,
river cruises.
Berlin By Numbers - How it works
Berlin By Numbers, a free do-it-yourself guide to Germany's capital city, Berlin, is now available via your mobile phone browser on http://www.bbno.info. BBNO tells you about attractions near you such as tourist sights, galleries, cafes, bars, clubs restaurants etc. This is a true mobile site, fundamentally designed for pocket-sized screens. It requires no special software, customised to your phone, just a web browser.
The modern Babelfish (what's a Babelfish?)
This site is in English although all of the names are German of course; but with this site, you no longer need to keep one of Douglas Adams' babelfish in your ear. For the major tourist sites, links to Wikipedia articles are provided in a sometimes suprising number of languages, making this a pretty unique mobile universal guide to one of Europe's most interesting capital cities.
Costs
The basic service is free of charge, apart from your mobile phone provider's charges for the data traffic.
Navigation
Instead of GPS satellites, Berlin's underground railway system is used to find your way around. The lines in Berlin have names like U9 or S1. If you enter U9 when your mobile browser is showing Berlin By Numbers, you will be presented with a list of the 18 stations on that line. In this way you can choose "Kurfürstendamm", for instance, simply by scrolling down and selecting the name. This saves you having to find those unusual German characters on your phone.
Having selected your station, your browser will show a list of interesting things near that station.
Links to Wikipedia articles for Kurfürstendamm are shown in Dansk, Deutsch, Español, Hebrew, Italiano, Nederlands, Norsk, Polski, Português and Svenska, in case English is not your first language.
Sights are shown like this, with a link to the page for the sight.
DA DE EN ES HE IT NL NO PT PL SV Aquarium Filmpalast Berlin Luna Bagels Soupkultur Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum
Entries in BBNO
Whatever the type of entry, the basic information is the same and is meant to fit on a pocket-sized screen.
Small pictures can be added, to help to identify the location. Opening hours and the
address are basic information and there is an option to search the street named for other entries.
Links to useful Wikipedia articles are offered, in this case to explain what "Knödel" are; a German culinary delicacy.
Telephone numbers are in full international format, so that you don't need to know the international dialling code for Germany, or even the dialling code for Berlin. Most browsers allow you to dial the number on your mobile phone with one click.
The internet address is given, although this will often not be too useful on your mobile phone browser. It's handy when viewing on your PC.
The name of the nearest station is given too. If you follow this link, you will be shown a list of things around the station.
The name of the nearest tram line. If you follow this link, you will see a list of stations on this line.
Follow this link for live departure times provided by Berlin's public transport company.
Follow this link for a Google map of the location. Note that the data volume is high. It works on my PDA but not on my 2006 smart-phone.
This is where you can add your own comments. Click on [edit] to open the edit window and start typing. The other details are not shown in this mode, keeping things as simple as possible for pocket-sized editors.
Mon-Fri 10:00-18:30
Sat 12:00-16:00Shop/restaurant. Bettina Heikaus & Leonie Heilmann. Hand made Knödel and pasta. Recommended by Ulrike.
Mulackstraße 33 Search the street +493060507449 http://www.leobettini.de Weinmeisterstraße M2 next map
Your comments [edit]
Anyone can add a new entry
BBNO - editing
Anyone can add an entry or insert a personal comment using their mobile phone as long as Java is installed, which is pretty standard on modern mobile phones. Click on the Edit this page link and the display will change to show the source code for the page. Choose an empty space to insert your text and start thumbing. You wouldn't want to type in too much with you mobile phone keyboard - which is probably a good idea as whatever you write is going to be read on the modest size screen of someone's mobile phone. Still, when you are taking a break in that cafe you've just discovered, you will have time for a bit of thumbing. The system supports uploading pictures from your phone too, if you are feeling adventurous.
Chargeable audio content
The system supports audio
and
video streaming or downloads. There are plans for chargeable content, in the form of professionally produced audio guides to some of Berlin's many sights. This form of information is increasingly popular in the world's museums, using dedicated, rented players and headphones.
Mobile phones are quite suitable as audio players; they were originally designed for audio, after all. Using your own phone liberates you from the confines of any particular museum and you can take your own personal virtual audio guide with you, wherever you are in the streets and squares of Berlin.
BBNO on a PC
You can view BBNO on your PC using your normal web-browser. It largely looks and works just the same as on a mobile phone, although some older PCs will make hard work of reproducing 3GP audio and video, which were designed for mobile use, and your browser may not be able to display linked in WAP pages (e.g.weather / departure times). Editing pages is easier, as you have a full ASCII keyboard and mouse, instead of just your mobile phone buttons. See what BBNO looks like on a mobile phone on http://www.wordwise.de/emulator.htm.
Contact
For more information contact
Dr. Klaus Lohse
BBNO - Berlin By Numbers
Am Fichtenberg 14 D
12165 BerlinTel.: 030 - 797 00 519
Email : klaus.lohse@bbno.infoKim Booth
BBNO - Berlin By Numbers
Odenwaldstr. 21
12161 BerlinTel.: 030 - 81 00 60 99
Handy: 0176 25 17 91 93
Email : kim@bbno.info
