Until the 5th of August I'll be at a Vipassa retreat in Denekamp and after that I'll be in New York for five days for a convention of the IFPPS, the International Federation For Professional Speakers. My vacation will thus start with ten days of complete silence, reviewing everything anew, the experience within myself, my view on other life and my vision of the world of today and the future. After a lecture that follows immediately on this, I'll leave for New York to exchange thoughts on the craft with the top-professionals in the world. After some silence on this blog, I'll return begin August full of energy and fresh knowledge. And then onwards to version 2.0 of this website!

When one looks up a route, Dutch Routesite Routenet automatically calculates the actual fuel costs based on the type of car and fuel used. By entering the car's license plate number the model of the car, the fuel consumption and the actual fuel prices are looked up. Based on that Routenet calculates the cost.

The Dutch living concept Stay or Go calls the members of its community on Grohe Rainshowers to test a special kind of shower head. This was sent to the members through email. By clicking the link in the email a personal page is created where the users only need to add their zip code. The rest is already filled out and users can then click 'send'. That's all you need to do to sign up. Then Grohe selects people based on their profile, including their zip code.

PC Zapper groups together all watched videostreams of broadcasting companies, of Dutch video sharing sites or other video sources using Dutchcharts (Dutch). This way a Top 30 can be created. Videos can be clicked on and watched immediately.

Through CitySense inhabitants and visitors of San Francisco can see where the masses are in a city with one press on their BlackBerry. Through GPS and WiFi-locations of other (anonymous) CitySense-users the BlackBerry displays real time where in the city the most people are gathered. You can see whether it concerns a busy restaurant, overcrowded bar, or a steamy club. Also ideal for when you're looking for an empty bar stool or don't want to go out where all of San Francisco is at that moment.

Director Marcel Nillesen of the marketing company CustomMedia in Emmeloord has placed security footage on YouTube with the text 'Do you recognize this man?' In the video a man walks into the office and comes back out sometime later, carrying a laptop. Whoever gives CustomMedia the golden tip can look forward to a nice reward.

Samsung has asked consumers to make a home video containing a Samsung phone with the help of the site InstinctThePhone. Samsung will add the phone, you don't even have to own it. The first 1000 videos will receive $20, the winner $10.000.

Yvette, Rabobank's brand agent, has sent an email to her relations to ask about their experiences with her. The text in the email turns out to come from the University of Maastricht and contains a link to the survey site. Here Yvette's relations will be asked questions such as 'during my conversations with Yvette we talk about things other than just finances' which people can answer themselves.

Through Dutch housing site Zuka buyers and sellers can chat with one another directly. Typical questions that aren't (as) easily caught in a database - for example 'from what time will the sun be shining in the garden?' or 'when was the exterior painted for the last time?' - can easily be answered in this way. In an extreme case one might even be able to make an offer from the chatroom.

Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has developed a 3D LCD display box, the so-called gCubik, that with its 10cm diameter fits into your hand perfectly. The developers will commit themselves to creating sharper images in the coming years.

Energy company Nuon offers Dutch people self-service through the number 0900 0808. Callers are asked to enter their client number and the four numbers of their zip code for identification. After that, through the use of IVR (Interactive Voice Response system, with keys) they can check whether a bill has been paid, change the account number, increase or decrease the amount pay or switch to automatic payments.

While the Dutch broadcasting company NET5 shows Wimbledon's most important matches on television, the others can be watched on Wimbledon2008 (Dutch). You can also watch old broadcastings, view the results and send in your own questions.

While western eyes are trained on China and India, China is looking chiefly at Africa: the next continent that will bloom up in a year or twenty. The Chinese quest for fossil fuels is leading more and more often to extremely active governmental support for projects in African countries that can offer oil. For example, China has been investing billions in oil-rich Angola for years and it's now investing in the electricity grid of the poor, West-African country of Nigeria. China has recently awarded Angola the support of 135 million dollars for rebuilding their electricity grid, water supplies and the infrastructure. In 2002 the civil war that had been raging in Angola for the past 27 years and had destroyed the infrastructure was finally ended. The Angolan media reported that the Chinese dollars will fund the modernization of the electricity grid in two cities in the Lunda Norte and Lunda-sul provinces, as well as the construction of a water purification plant, canals in Luanda and an improvement of the infrastructure in two other provinces. Furthermore the Chinese money will be used to build a center for the treatment and prevention of malaria in the hospital of Luanda.

At GreenNote American students can get financing for their college/university studies through acquaintances. The student creates a profile and adds, alongside the desired monetary amount, a photo, information on finished courses and in 'my story' the reason the money is needed. And of course why they think that lending them money to go to college is a good investment. From there the student can start to approach people.

If people are interested in offering a loan, GreenNote formalizes this through a legally binding contract for both the student and the person offering the loan.

Dutch TV producer Talpa (Dutch) belonging to John de Mol asks for new ideas on TalpaCreative (English). Visitors of the site can win €500,000 and on top of that their idea will be brought to life, giving them eternal fame as an added reward.