Skating trails crisscross Switzerland, along with hiking, cycling, VTT and canoeing trails
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss Topo, the government mapping service, has just released the latest version of its set of online Swiss maps, which are faster and more complete, with the entire range of scales now available, from 1 :25,000 to 1 : million, in English, French, Italian and German.
The maps are regularly updated, so the online maps, for an annual subscription of CHF49 the first year and CHF29 in subsequent years, don’t become outdated.
They include not only roads and geographic details but aerial images, historical maps, the official Swiss hiking trails and the Switzerland Mobility 20,000km interactive maps that allow you to plan and trace your route on the wealth of official bicycle, walking, VTT, skating and canoeing trails (normal price, CHF30/year). They also include POI, points of interest, such as youth hostels, Schweizer Familie lodging and Friends of Nature houses.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Tibère Adler has resigned as managing director of the Edipresse Group, French-speaking Switzerland’s largest media company, at the end of June. Adler and the company say that he is leaving after 22 years with the company, on excellent terms: he will continue to handle mandates for Tamedia, which bought out Edipresse, with the merger of the two to be completed next year.
Pierre Lamunière, chairman and administrator for Edipresse, will step into the post left vacant by Adler.
Adler is moving on to become a minority shareholder in and chairman of the board of Digital Luxury Group in Geneva, in September. Adler, as part of the DLG announcement of his post says “It is a pioneering company in digital marketing for luxury brands and is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic in this business sector.”
The 48-year-old Adler, a Geneva native, is a lawyer. He completed a management course at IMD in Lausanne. He remains a member of Edipresse’s Asia Advistory Board, a post that may prove helpful in his new position, given the emphasis DLG is putting on selling in Asia. The company has its head office in Geneva, with offices in New York and Shanghai.
DLG was born in May 2011 from IC-Agency, a company specialized in digital marketing for luxury brands which calls itself the “first international company solely dedicated to the success of luxury brands online”, in particular using social media.
The IC-Agency brand has been handed over to IC Agency Canada, the group says, and it now has no association with DLG.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Chemical products that pose a serious health danger are parading as “herbal” weight loss products, sold online and imported illegally, warns Swissmedic, which has responsibility in Switzerland for overseeing medical and therapeutic products.
Two ingredients in particular, Sibutramine and Rimonabant, both of which are banned substances in Europe, were found in 122 samples of various slimming products that were seized in 2010.
The products were seized by customs as illegal imports.
Only six products were actually “herbal” and only 10 were “genuine medicinal products”, while four contained active substances that were not the ones listed, including two that have not been tested on humans.
A 48-year-old former nurse accused of seeking out and encouraging via the Internet people who were considering suicide, was sentenced in Minnesota Wednesday 4 May. William Melchert-Dinkel was convicted in March over the deaths of a 32-year-old man from England and an 18-year-old Canadian woman.
The judge yesterday ordered him to serve 320 days in prison, then in an unusual twist, to return to prison for two days every year for 10 years, on the anniversaries of the deaths of his victims. He was ordered not to have access to the Internet except for his new job as a trucker. He had been working in a nursing home.
The families of the victims expressed disappointment with the sentences: Melchert-Dinkel had faced up to 15 years in prison for assisting suicides.
The judge said that Melchert-Dinkel’s actions were not alone responsible for the deaths, but they played a role. He posed as a female nurse online and he has admitted to taking part in online suicide chats and he signed fake suicide pacts. He told the court he believed at least five of those people killed themselves.
Links to other sites: Newsninemsn, Pioneer Press
Old and loved coming to Montreux: BB King, Jimmy Cliff, Santana, Ricky Martin, George Benson and more
Montreux, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The web site of the Montreux Jazz Festival was hacked Tuesday 12 April and the programme, a closely guarded secret, was published online two days ahead of the official announcement. The festival office has hired a company to find the leak.
Officially, we won’t know until Thursday 14 April at 10:00 what the complete lineup is, but unofficially, most of it is already out there, the MJF office said Tuesday.
The festival office has produced the official if incomplete programme. Check back Thursday for more news.
Smart phone orders now more than 8%
Source: Le Shop, 2011
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Le Shop’s steady strong growth continued in the first three months of 2011, but with a new twist, as shoppers increasingly used smart phones and tablets to place their orders.
Le Shop’s sales rose 9 percent in Q1 compared to the same period a year earlier, to CHF41.5 million for the three months. Smart phone and tablet orders now account for 5,000 orders a month, with a total value of more than CHF1 million a month, or about 8 percent of Le Shop’s total sales.
The share of customers with iPhones has increased in the past year from 25 percent to 37 percent, says Le Shop. The target clientele is working mothers with young children. Some 45,000 clients now spend at least CHF230 in one order, at least once a month.
Post Office version of new Swiss digital ID card
Quo Vadis is the other Swiss ID card distributor
Price starts at CHF39 for three years through La Poste, with government cashback
Update 16:25 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland Monday morning 3 May unveiled its new online ID system, called SuisseID, which uses a USB key or card with chip as proof of identity. The cards and keys are available as of Monday 3 May.
The system is available to businesses and individuals, and Bern expects to see 200,000-300,000 of the digital IDs delivered by the end of 2010. Swisscom is the sole vendor for companies and Quo Vadis and the Swiss Post Office sell it to individuals.
The new ID system will move more business operations to the Internet and should prove useful for government offices as well as private business.
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GenevaLunch has a fresher look and some new features, with more to come in the next few days. The site is faster as well, part of our efforts to make your visit enjoyable and informative. Read the details on the editor’s blog: Editor’s Notepad.
Waiting for the race to start, Friday 12 February, in Valencia (photo: BMW Oracle
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) – The America’s Cup sailing race has finally reached water. The two tall elegant sailboats built using the latest technology are fighting out the first of their two or three races. The race began shortly before 15:00 Friday 12 February after being delayed Monday and Wednesday due to no wind the first day and high seas the second.
The match can be viewed online live on the America’s Cup site or on the TSR web site in French.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – International football federation Fifa says it will continue to offer second sales phase tickets online for the World Cup 2010 matches until midnight South Africa time (01:00 Swiss time) Friday 20 November, on a first come first served basis. The extension has been made in part to accommodate excited fans after Wednesday’s qualifying matches, with European teams Ireland versus France in Saint Denis, France.
The third and main phase for ticket sales online opens 6 December, the day after the final draw.
The Sadko Seahorse brooch from the new collection (photo: Businesswire)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Fabergé, the maker of the iconic eggs for the Russian imperial court, has relaunched under an innovative business model that avoids using traditional retail outlets. Its high-end jewelry, with prices starting at $30,000, will be sold online at www.faberge.com and at one own-brand retail outlet in Geneva. Fabergé has plans to extend its range from high-end jewelry and jeweled objets to classic jewelry and watches.
Zurich/Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss newspapers’ print versions are seeing their circulations rise, albeit a slight 0.6 percent. The most recent figures from the Remp survey, done by the Swiss advertising media’s independent research organization, shows that 92.4% of Swiss people over age 14 read a newspaper “more or less regularly,” without defining the frequency. Remp notes that figures for the number of readers has remained “remarkably stable” over the past 10 years.
Le Temps and 24 Heures are the winners for growth in French-speaking Switzerland, among the for-pay newspapers.
Death Valley, California, with Aster programme digital images (click on image to view larger)
The US space agency Nasa and the Japanese Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry have put together what they say is the most complete topographic map of the Earth, using 1.3 million individual “stereo images” to compile it. “This unique global set of data will serve users and researchers from a wide array of disciplines that need elevation and terrain information” and the information is free and readily available online, says a Nasa official, Woody Turner. Nasa
Zurich, Switzerland (romandie/ATS, Fre) – NZZ, German-speaking Switzerland’s main serious newspaper, said Wednesay 17 June that it will cut 20-25 jobs among its IT staff as part of plans to merge some of its operations. The cost-cutting measure will not touch the editorial staff. NZZ laid off 24 employees (20 fulltime posts) in late 2008. The newspaper also said it is studying sharp increases in subscription rates and the possibility of charging for some of its online content, notably financial reporting and commentary by its best-known journalists.
NZZ posted a loss for the first quarter of 2009, with advertising down by 30 percent from January to the end of March. Its Internet operations are operating at a loss that is currently CHF3 million, reports ATS. (2007-2008 figures). The Zurich newspaper is the latest media group in Switzerland to announce job cuts, in a string of actions to try to turn around the hard-hit newspaper, magazine and online news business.
An online marketplace where companies or individuals with common interests connect to buy and sell local services such as babysitting, cleaning and classes. Opened in April 2008; functions in French and English.
