You may be a professional astronomer or it may only be that you are interested in knowing a bit more about stars, whatever it is, Google Sky Map is the perfect application for you.

The program uses integrated GPS in smartphones to make the mobile pone work in a very intuitive way: the user can point the mobile phone to the sky and he will be able to see on the screen, the name of the star he is looking at. Moreover the application shows names of constellations and if the user is looking for a planet or a star in particular, you can name it and the program will say exactly where to look to find it.

It is a great application that will amaze everyone and will help all of us learn more about stars, especially now that summer nights are not far…

Today is Internet day and we have decided to take the opportunity to give you some numbers on what Internet means nowadays. This information comes from the Royal Pingdom Report 2010:

- There are 1,97 billion users in Internet, this is about one third of the population worldwide.

- Europe represents 24,2% of total Internet users.
- There are more than 152 million blogs in Internet, thank you for reading ours!
- Facebook has more than 600 million users.
- More than 2 billion videos are watched daily on Youtube.

With these numbers we’ll be able to think how important Internet has become in very little time and how it has changed our way of life.

The  travelling sector has been especially affected by the Web, as it has  revolutionized the way we buy tickets, make reservation and the information we obtain about the places we go.

Because withouth Internet, Hotelopia would not exist… and without its readers, this blog wouldn’t exists either… Thank you!

Today we want to present a web page that we find very interesting.  It is called TargetMap. It consists on a web tool in which you can create your own Worldmaps, maps of an specific country or upload addresses. For example, if you have been abroad and you have saved the addresses of the restaurants, museums, etc you have been to, you can upload them and the web page will create a map with all of them marked.

It is very userfriendly and simple. Once the map has been done you can share it. It is also useful for mapping with data, as it allows you to upload information from Excel.

Google Maps has its very special way of travelling from Japan to China. Do you want to check yourself? Follow the instructions:

1.    Go on to google maps.

2.    Write from: Japón

3.    Write on the destination China

4.    Look at step 43 of the list of directions.

Incredible! Google always has a funny side and this idea is at least, a little bit weird. The direction is clear “Jet Ski across the Pacific Ocean” although we are not sure this is the best way to cross the ocean.  Thanks to virality on facebook and other social networks, this joke that google developers have introduced in the directions has expanded over the last few weeks. We hope it made you smile but if you are trying to find a good hotel in those countries, do not forget to use Hotelopia.

Google Earth is a computer program that allows users to fly virtually through any place in the world. Pictures are taken from satelites and are updated on a regular basis. Also it offers information about borders, street names, restaurants and monuments. It is a great tools for those looking for an address or planning to go on holiday but, what else can we do with google Earth?

We have found a blog that gives you some interesting ideas of things to look for in Google Earth. A fun way of passing time in a cold lazy day, isn’t it?

1. Look for your own house: It is what most people do when they first interact with Google Earth.

2. Look for flying aircraft

3. Look for strange things…

… Want to know more ? Entertain yourself with this fantastic blog Google Earth Hacks and tell us about it!

P.s. Another idea that we haven seen on the blog:  Look for cars driving on the taxi lane

The most important social network worldwide has announce that from tomorrow on, there will be an alliance with Spotify. Last week there was a similar agreement between Facebook and Pandora. Now the Premium users of the music program will be able to share their music with their Facebook friends and friends will have the option to rate and comment about it.

Some time ago we talked about the iPad, the new gadget that apple presented to the world as the solution to everything. The apple device that may revolutionise travel guides and inflight enterteinment will not be available in UK until the end of the month.

Although this weekend it will be on sale in the US, new technology lovers in the UK will have to wait until the end of April to discover the applications and how useful this device is. It is still uncertain how much we will have to pay to be one of the firsts to have the iPad at home, however we hope to hear opinions from our readers: Is it the solution to everything? Is it as useful as we thought travelling-wise? Unless we travel to the US we will have to wait yet another month to find out!

The experience of travelling, either abroad or inside the country, has changed dramatically in very small amount of time, nobody can deny it. Gone are the days of packing tour guides and there is space for something else where we use to have big road maps (the car’s back seat). You don’t need to have a special device to listen to your favourite songs and your music will not occupy any space, no CDs or Walkman or Discman: new mobile phones have it all!

There are so many applications for this new generation of phones that you can do an astonishing variety of things: from listening to the last hits or a classic you love ( Pandora app), to knowing exactly where you are and how to go to that museum your best friend recommended (poynt). You can even have a tourist information guide with audio in your iphone with just one click (London or York pocket) or book a restaurant through Internet.

Some of us still prefer the old ways, the rest of us have already adapted to this new method of travelling with a great deal of advantages: technology saves you money, space and time when travelling.

From the 15th to the 18th of February, the beautiful city of Barcelona, in Spain, becomes the place for mobile leaders to collaborate and gather as well as exhibiting their advances in mobile phones.

In 2009, Mobile World Congress hosted approximately 47,000 mobile professionals from 182 countries. In addition, more than 2,400 members of the press reported from the event, representing more than 1,500 media groups from 76 countries. This year, even with the crisis, the numbers will be quite similar. Although some handset makers (such as one of the leaders in the market, NOKIA) have skipped this year’s congress, there is still plenty of mobile industry news about cell phones, carriers, services, and software applications.

Some of the highlights of the event this years are the cheapest mobile phone in the world, a mobile phone that turns into a projector, phones for aged people… and the Windows Phone 7, the phone that Microsoft will launch at the end of the year. If you want to know more about this congress visit www.mobileworldcongress.com.

Steve Job, Apple’s Chief Executive Officer unveiled his company’s last gadget on Wednesday: the iPad. It is, as he defined it, a mixture between an iphone and a laptop, it is a tablet device the size of a book, a centimetre thick but what can this device do for us?

As travellers, we will focus on the characteristics that will change travelling costumes: for example, to refer to how long the battery lasted, Steve Job said you could watch movies in a flight from San Francisco to Tokio non stop, that is ten hours! Another program the ipad includes is a map application, which of course is something we have already seen in the iTouch or other smartphones but what about travel guides?

As the iPad is also an e-book but with GPS and internet technology, will we have normal travel guides in it? Or will they be more than just e-travel guides, more interactive? Pictures, how to get there from where you are, the distance between where you are and where the place is… Could this be a whole new life for travel guides? What do you think?