Archive for: city
- September 22, 2010 6:57 am
Blunt? Perhaps. But it kinda-sorta feels like a Friday. What does that have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is not getting plastered by a truck when you’re rockin’ out to your beats and struttin’ your stuff through the city. It seems like a day doesn’t pass without some newspaper publicizing how some poor sap get his face reconstructed by a car because he couldn’t hear them coming, all because he was blaring Lady Gaga too loud on his headphones. Apparently, humans have forgotten we have these wonderful devices called…eyes…*Gasps!* that allow us to search our surroundings for dangers — You know, like a big freakin’ truck! — before preceding. Nevertheless, technology has come forward to save us from technology.
Introducing: “Awareness”. This app is compatible with iOS 4 and runs in the background while you listen to music. When you start it up, it picks up the outside noise via microphones on your iPhone and then plays that noise back at the “standard/default” level on top of your music. Basically, you’ll get the effect of open headphones even if you’re wearing a pair of noise-reducing ear-canal phones like Shures, Etys, Ultimate Ears, etc., etc.
Thankfully, the developers have added a few helpful features that ensure this novelty is actually useful. First, the end user can adjust how loud the background noise is. Second, a feature called “Ducking” turns your music volume down as outside noise increases should you choose to prefer the latter over the former. Unfortunately as of writing, a bug in iOS is causing Ducking Mode to fail. A fix is in the works, however, and should be submitted to Apple for approval within the next few days. The gist of the story is this: If you want to not die, listen to headphones, and roam the streets, you need Awareness.
$5 in the App Store. If you want to see Awareness in action before plopping down the required cash, step on through for a helpful video…
Mobile web junkies, London 2012 will be the place to go. Not only will you have thousands of athletes from across the globe competing for the gold, but fresh, speedy WiFi to boot. This comes from London’s mayor, Boris Johnson himself. According to the good mayor, by 2012 tourists and inhabitants alike can expect wireless access points in every light post, street sign, bus stop, etc., etc come games time.
So far, 22 boroughs have jumped on board the monumental task of outfitting a city such as London with all the needed hardware to make true wireless mobility a seamless experience. The only thing that remains mystery for now is the pricetag on such a project as well as the price tag (if any) on user access fees. I would hope that the city would budget such things into tax payers’ tab instead of continual access fees which no one likes. Either way, someone’s going to have to pay, right?
In order to start Monday with some good news, we’ll get the bad out of the way early tonight.
Plenty of mass transit commuters in big cities know that riding taxis, buses, and trains to work results in a fair amount of lost productivity. But a recent wave of tech madness has been sweeping trains and buses, with WiFi access becoming almost common place. Focusing on trains/subway rail lines in particular, the task of getting an outside connection can be quite the challenge. Usually the WiFi is provided via cellular signals. Such signals are hard to come by in many of the environments trains and subways travel through, hence the challenge.
Unfortunately for Chicagoans, talks of Metra getting the WiFi fix are null and void for the time being.
- December 27, 2009 6:55 pm
The ongoing spiraling in a downward direction that AT&T’s image is continually traveling is both sad and entertaining. Could it be my sadistic side finding pleasure in an enemies misfortunes? Who knows. What I do know however is that reports from Consumerist this fine Sunday evening detailing a new revelation in the AT&T/iPhone drama are quite alarming to say the least.
Go to Apple’s or AT&T’s website and try and order an iPhone with any NYC zipcode — it won’t work. Now try any other major city in the continental US — business as usual. What gives? After Consumerist reader “Stephen” stumbled upon this little folly, Consumerist writer “Laura” went ahead and gave the ‘ol ball and chain a jingle to see if she could get any more info. The conversation she had was nothing short of eye opening…
Daphne: Welcome to AT&T online Sales support. How may I assist you with placing your order today?
Laura: Hi, I was looking at the iPhone 3Gs and the system tells me that I cannot order one in my ZIP code. My zip code is 11231. (Brooklyn, NY) Is this true? Are iPhones no longer available in New York City?
Daphne: I am happy to be helping you today . Yes, this is correct the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone.
Daphne: You don’t have enough towers to handle the phone.
Laura: Thank you for your help. So the phone is not available to people anywhere in the city?
Daphne: Yes this is correct Laura.
Wow, just wow. Now before I come off sounding too critical, on the surface, limiting or restricting a device causing excessive network drain and load seems like an intelligent idea. That is until you look at the bigger picture — that which includes the restricted device being one of the most highly sought after smartphones in the world. It may temporarily slow down or even halt network load growth in NYC, but it certainly won’t improve the companies ever decreasing image. If anything, I see this move bringing even more attention to AT&T’s problems.
Of course, the question of “why bother?” comes to mind since strolling into any physical Apple or AT&T store will net your a shiny new iPhone. Perhaps they’re trying to cut off all of those lazy couch potatoes that suck down the data from the confines of their homes, eschewing the network saving WiFi no? There is also the question of why AT&T is taking so damn long upgrading their network in the first place.
What do you think? Is the restricting of iPhone sales online a good move or another drop in the already overflowing bucket of shame?
Consumerist
- December 16, 2009 8:52 am
Energy efficient traffic lights seem like one of the best ways to save local governments significant amounts of money of the course of 5, 10, or more years. The lights which often use LED technology are much less demanding on the power grid which in turn means more money for other things. But there’s one side effect many have overlooked. Heat output.
Remember, the higher the heat output of a light, the more energy is being wasted. That’s all fie and dandy for indoor lighting or lighting or “non-critical outdoor lighting”. You see, the city of Chicago is discovering that the lack of heat output because of the new LED traffic lights’ increased efficiency is actually creating another problem — increased snow build up leading to a higher number of accidents.
It’s an easy concept to understand. Traditional traffic lights generate heat which in turn melts the snow off of the actual lights keeping them free and easily seen. LED’s with their much lower energy consumption and heat output allow snow to build up as temperatures aren’t getting high enough to melt the snow. It’s a sad side effect really as now numerous people are being injured and potential lives lost. Even still, it would be foolish and hasty for the city of Chicago to backtrack on their “green rollout” by replacing the more energy efficient traffic lights with the older style simply to melt snow for a few months out of the year. Though for an easy and quick fix, swapping the lights may be the only answer.
I’m not a civil engineer in Chicago so I don’t know how they went about the big switch to LED bulbs. Can they simply replace the bulbs with traditional lights or do they need to change the entire fixture? On the surface, such a switch seems like the best way to go as I don’t see any quick, easy, and cost effective way to “warm up” LED traffic lights. Future models of LED traffic signals could have an electric heating element of some sort built into the light housing as to melt the snow. But again, that doesn’t help the thousands of currently deployed lights on the streets. Not to mention, adding such a feature will no doubt add to the cost of energy efficient traffic lights — lights which are already a fair amount more than traditional lights.
Of course, cities employing LED traffic lights have another option — have city workers clean of the bulbs by hand. It’s not quick and it isn’t exactly a very good “fix”. For the time being however it is the only viable option to keep the LED’s and reduce traffic accidents.
To highlight the point further, many cities in Wisconsin have been migrating to LED lights for some time now. In fact, there are so many “modernized” traffic lights — numbering in the hundreds — that the state is saving over $750,000 per year in energy costs. It may not seem like it would make a huge dent in the state’s budget, but every little bit helps. Not to mention, I’m sure their are more than a few hundred traffic signals in Wisconsin. Just imagine the energy savings if all of them were converted to LED. Simple solution: Take a tad of that savings and hire an extra body or two during the winter months to aide in cleaning LED traffic lights off. Sound easy enough?
Some will never be pleased however as several are calling for the city to abandon the move to LED traffic lights until a new design emerges that can actually be self sufficient in cold, snowy weather. Such things are again short sighted. While a price tag can never be placed on a human life, removing technology — a very needed and important one at that — simply because of a minor problem is a bad decision.
Any Chi-town residents care to chime in? Have you personally witnessed any accidents due to LED lights being covered by ice and snow?
Chicago Tribune
- December 17, 2008 10:51 pm
I’m not going to lie, I am a HUGE Sim City fan, forget the fan that I’m terrible at actually sustaining a city and my townsfolk always end up hating me and moving away. Back on topic, this game is awesome. I’ve only had it for 30 minutes but am loving it already. If you are a huge Sim City fan do not pass this up! Head over to the App Store and pick up your copy of sweet goodness for $9.99!
