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Welcome to "On the Net Today". Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we bring you a handpicked selection of three valuable and interesting online resources to help you get the most out of the internet and optimize your browsing time.

Here are the three resources we've prepared for today:

• The Guardian interactive lets you visualize 2024's extreme heat across the world

• The Best Cities in the world for walking

• Free Technology Courses offered by IBM

The Guardian interactive lets you visualize 2024's extreme heat across the world

Image from one of the maps provided by The Guardian in their interactive

The Guardian recently published a comprehensive visual interactive report analyzing and showing how two-thirds of Earth's surface experienced record temperatures throughout the past year, 2024.

The interactive allows users to discover, month by month, which areas of the world experienced extreme heat, and to what extent. The maps in this visual work show areas, both in oceans and continents, with record temperatures (in some cases, 5 degrees Celsius above the previous maximum), along with other information.

The data presented by The Guardian comes from measurements taken by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

Link:

• Two-thirds of the Earth's surface experienced record heat in 2024. See where and by how much – visualised – The Guardian 

  In oceans and on land, from the north to the south pole, records were smashed for the monthly average temperature

The Best Cities in the world for walking

The magazine The Economist has recently published an interactive feature presenting the ranking of the best cities in the world for walking. Milan (Italy) occupies the first place, followed by Copenhagen (Denmark) and Turin (Italy).

The ranking is based on a study conducted by Nature Cities, published last year, titled "A universal framework for inclusive 15-minute cities," which analyzes the average time needed by inhabitants of more than 10,000 cities to reach basic facilities and services—such as schools, hospitals, restaurants, or shops—and the percentage of population that lives within a maximum 15-minute walk from these services.

In Milan, the average time needed to walk to any basic service is only 7 minutes, and 98% of the population lives in a neighborhood where nothing is more than a 15-minute walk away.

The Spanish cities best positioned in the ranking are Bilbao, at number 14, and Barcelona, at 19, while Madrid is situated at position number 37. A total of 45 of the top 50 cities are European.

In the Asian continent, the best cities for walking are Kyoto (Japan) and Taipei (Taiwan). None of the cities in North America appear among the top 50 cities in the ranking. The highest appearing on the list is Vancouver (Canada), at position number 53 in the world.

Link:

• What can the world’s most walkable cities teach other places? – The Economist

Free Technology Courses offered by IBM

IBM offers a free training service on technology topics and workplace skills called IBM SkillsBuild, aimed at both high school and university students as well as adults.

In IBM SkillsBuild, students aged 13 to 18, who are still at the stage of beginning to explore their future professional career, can get started in the technology world with a wide variety of courses. 

Meanwhile, university students and adults can train with IBM SkillsBuild courses to find a job or acquire new technological knowledge and skills that will allow them to advance in their career.

To get an idea of IBM SkillsBuild's educational offering, here is the complete catalog of pathways and courses offered:

Technical Skills:

• Artificial intelligence

• Blockchain

• Cloud computing

• Cybersecurity

• Data science

• Emerging technologies

• Enterprise computing

• IT support

• Quantum computing

• UX Design

• Web development

Workplace Skills: 

• Agile

• Design thinking

• Job readiness

• Mindfulness

• Professional skills

Expand Your Horizons: 

• Principles of design

• Sustainability

The courses allow you to earn digital credentials.

Additionally, IBM SkillsBuild also offers tools and services for educators.

Link:

• IBM SkillsBuild

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That's all for today. Thank you for reading!