Did you know that Switzerland has around 65'000 kilometres of hiking trails? That's about 1.5 times the circumference of the earth! A huge number of municipalities and volunteer organisations maintain the hiking trails and offer hikes in all the cantons.
Basel City-Wide Wifi In the Works; Swiss Mountain Resort Town Bans St. Bernard Photos; Floods Feared as Rain Continues; Uni Basel Joins E-learning Age
News on 5 May 2015
Although the government of BaselStadt has been toying with the idea of providing free WIFI internet service within the central district of the city, for the time being it has deemed the project too costly and risky. Not to fret however... if you're a data hungry web-surfer, a private enterprise based in Grenzach Germany is stepping into the fray to offer a solution. Freifunk Dreilandereck has been successfully delivering such a service in its home town, and is hoping to piggyback on its experience to expand its service into Basel. The company networks a large number of wifi access points (currently 60 in Grenzach) to virtually create a single wifi area. Those wishing to access the network can subscribe with the company which then furnishes the passcode that allows access to the data network. It has been eight years since such a model was first deployed in Berlin where successful city-wide, WIFI services are available. It is expected that the service will go live by the end of this year.
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If you've ever had a holiday during the winter in a Swiss ski resort, you will of course recall photo-ops made available by local vendors with the quintessential St. Bernard dog. Well, it seems one Swiss town - no less than Zermatt, the global ski-destination - has decided to ban the taking of tourist photos using the dogs. It seems SAP, the swiss animal protection association has been filing complaints with the municipality for several years arguing the dogs were kept in cruel conditions which violated Swiss animal protection laws. Last Thursday the measure was adopted. Over the years the SAP agency had collected a report detailing the conditions the dogs faced when working. The Saint Bernards were tied up, in some occasions forced to give children rides on their backs, and, were without food and water for extensive periods which are specifically proscribed by Swiss Laws. No word from other resorts as to their plans to ban the dog photos, or from photo vendors about their plans for the treatment of their dog models.
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In case you haven't been keeping track, rains have been consistently falling in the area for going on two weeks. By yesterday afternoon the Rhein River water level had reached a critical level of 820cm which makes it difficult to operate the locks and bridges through which shipping normally passes in Basel. The deluge has left rail tracks damaged and in some cases washed away by landslide between Fribourg and Bern. The federal government has been forced to issue flood warnings for rivers throughout Switzerland, the Rhein Included. Although a break in the deluge is expected by midweek, the longer term forecasts indicate more rain for the coming weeks in mid-may.
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The combination of online and traditionally taught courses, known as Blended Learning has been on offer at the University of Basel since 2003. However, according to Gudrun Bachmann, director of educational technology at the UniBas, the institution is about to embark on a new partnership to deliver education to its audience. Working with the UK based Future Learn enterprise, UniBas will also make its courses available using FutureLearn's platform for Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs. 50 universities offering approximately 220 courses are already available on the network, and the participation of the University of Basel will expose over 1.2mm globally registered students to the course offerings. The platform and its educational contents are available for free to all registered students with an academic background. For the time being, the UniBas will offer 3 courses per year as part of its pilot program of affiliation with Future Learn. The university is responsible for producing the video courses which are done in its New Media Center and then uploaded to the online platform managed by Future Learn.