What's New Online? The 5 best things you must do on the web this fortnight.

1. Interact with the physical web

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Tales of the Park is an interactive map showing the location of 15 3D-printed creatures dotted around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, including bats, otters and bees. There’saclever twist if you visit in person, because if you follow the site’s instructions to set up the Physical Web on your phone, you can engage with the creatures as you get near them.

The Physical Web is a Google project that uses Bluetooth to extend the web to everyday objects. Each creature contains a low-energy Bluetooth beacon that broadcasts its presence and sends your phone a notification when you wander past, inviting you to chat. The creatures use chatbots to hold conversations and the map tells you what they like to discuss. Moonlight the Bat, for instance, will talk about the history of the Olympic Park while Super Gnome will discuss new buildings in the area.

Even if you can’t get to the Park, the map is a fun way to see its layout, including the striking 114.5m-tall ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture and the 80,000-capacity London Stadium. It’s a great way to explore the Physical Web and see how objects can be connected to the internet.

2. Project a 3D animation of yourself in Snapchat

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If you’ve created a Bitmoji avatar in Snapchat, you can now project it into the real world using a new augmented-reality feature. Take your snap and tap the screen to see a variety of Bitmoji World Lenses. Selecting one creates a 3D animated version of whatever your phone’s camera is capturing, letting you record and share the result with friends. There are different actions your avatar can perform, such as using a vending machine or a fidget spinner, drinking coffee, dancing and waiting for a bus. If you don’t have a Bitmoji, tap the logo in the top-left corner, select Create Bitmoji and downlod the Bitmoji app. Once you’ve created your likeness, you can link it to your Snapchat
account.

3. Listen to an ‘immersive 3D audio’ BBC drama

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The BBC has created a new interactive ‘object-based’ radio drama called The Mermaid’s Tears, recorded in immersive 3D audio. Created by the Beeb’s Research & Development team, the series lets you tune into the perspectives of three different characters. How you interpret what is really happening is influenced by which character you choose, as the evolving story is observed from their point of view, conversations and internal monologues. To get the most from the audio enhancements, you can choose to listen in stereo, surround-sound or with binaural audio on headphones. You can also rate the project and share it, and check out previous audio experiments.

4. Share Spotify tracks via iMessage

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With the latest version of Spotify on your iOS device, you can share 30-second snippets of songs directly from the music service’s library. In iOS 11, open iMessage, scroll the bottom icons to More, select Edit and move the slider next to Spotify. Now, when you write a message, you can select Spotify and search for songs then send them to a friend.

5. View weather in real time

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After rapidly cycling through a number of cities, Balloon. Earth selects a location and lets you see a visual interpretation of the weather as it is right now. It works by blending real-time weather data with 3D map renderings – so if it is raining, you get to see the
intensity of the drops overlaid on a map of the city; and if it’s sunny, buildings are drenched in warm light. Clicking the globe icon in the bottom- right corner takes you elsewhere, while selecting the paper aeroplane icon lets you share on social media. You can switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit, and make use of the Balloon.Earth Chrome extension, too.