The City of Copenhagen has just launched an innovative program aimed at tracking down stolen bicycles.
The program is called “Få en lille chip på” or “Get a little chip on” and involves handing out 5000 free RFID chips that Copenhageners can put on their bicycles in order to participate in the pilot program that will run until May 2010.
The chips are placed inside a red reflector, which is installed on the bicycle. You have to register to take part - name, address and email.
There is a small army of people walking about the city everyday with the enviable job of irritating motorists. We call them Parking Attendents. :-) They are on the sidewalks of the city writing out parking tickets anyway so they will now be equipped with an RFID scanner so they can walk past parked bicycles, scanning happily as they go.
If their GPS-equipped scanner registers a stolen bicycle, you will immediately recieve an email with a map featuring a red dot where your bicycle was found.
I will continue to post observations, inspirations and anything else that I come across in the city or online which may be relevant to urban computing, one of the domains of my final project
Another story I arrived late to are the padded lamp posts on London’s Brick Lane. As the story goes, this street, which has notoriously crowded sidewalks, is the location of countless injuries caused by people bumping in to lamp posts and other obstacles while texting. So the city used this street to test a new idea for making streets more safe — padded lamp posts.
This is wrong in so many ways, but you have to love such a low tech solution for dealing with the ramifications of such high tech devices.
UPDATE: There is a software solution! TXT’N'WALK app (http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.phtml/23288/txt-n-walk-mobile-app.phtml)
I will continue to post observations, inspirations and anything else that I come across in the city or online which may be relevant to urban computing, one of the domains of my final project
Someone recently showed me this ad campaign by Mini Cooper which uses RFID to target drivers of Mini Cooper cars as they pass by. From a New York Times article on the billboards…
The boards, which usually carry typical advertising, are programmed to identify approaching Mini drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. The messages are personal, based on questionnaires that owners filled out: “Mary, moving at the speed of justice,” if Mary is a lawyer, or “Mike, the special of the day is speed,” if Mike is a chef.
I am not sure if an elevated highway is the safest place to put this but it’s a nice idea nonetheless.
I will continue to post observations, inspirations and anything else that I come across in the city or online which may be relevant to urban computing, one of the domains of my final project
At many of the bus stops in Copenhagen is a count down timer to when the next bus will arrive. Actually, I don’t know how this works. But it’s awesome. Why is this only the first city I lived in that does this?
I will continue to post observations, inspirations and anything else that I come across in the city or online which may be relevant to urban computing, one of the domains of my final project
Caribbian is a bar in Copenhagen that offers a unique service - they deliver cocktails! Three things that Copenhagen has a plethora of are green parks, cargo bicycles and people drinking outdoors. This service brings all of those together through the use of mobile phones. Just text your drink order to the number above (i.e. 2 liters of frozen margaritas) and then find the delivery man who arrives on a cargo bicycle throughout the day at the city’s most popular parks.
No matter how nicely I asked my pizza delivery man in Philadelphia to deliver some beer with my food, he just would not do it. So not only does this service highlight how awesome Denmark is, it is a nice example of mobile technology as a business use in an urban setting.
I will continue to post observations, inspirations and anything else that I come across in the city or online which may be relevant to urban computing, one of the domains of my final project
Fitness club ad in the Netherlands, image from unpressablebuttons.com
This fitness club advertisement displays the weight of whoever is sitting on the bust stop bench, reminding them (or possibly shaming them) to think about exercise. It is another example of real-time data and public displays.
One of the most cliché of urban computing scenarios is the Minority Report style targeted advertising, but how can you can realistically change a billboard to meet the needs of one person in a group of people (without wearing a special eyeball)? I like that this does the opposite by singling out a person in a group of people, with the expectation that everyone is looking.
The Networked Omniscient (2006) by Evan Allen & Matthew Worsnick
I am also reminded of The Networked Omniscient (2006) by Evan Allen & Matthew Worsnick, in which they re-imagine Times Square filled with advertisements based on real-time data. For example, an NYPD advertisement that reads “There’s a Glock G-34 pistol crossing 44th Street. We’re on it.” Another billboard (sorry for the bad image) advertises a taxi company by reminding an individual of a flight they have later in the day.
I will continue to post observations, inspirations and anything else that I come across in the city or online which may be relevant to urban computing, one of the domains of my final project
While walking around town tonight I passed this on H.C. Andersens Boulevard, a display that was recently installed which shows the number of cyclists passing by. Red numbers indicate cyclists who passed by that day and blue is a running total for the year. A small sensor placed a few meters before the display changes numbers each time a bicycle rides over it. And according to the Copenhagenize blog, there is a SIM-card in the counter so the information is automatically sent to the City of Copenhagen’s Center for Traffic. Also worth mentioning is that next to the counter is a free pump for your tires!
This is a good example of real-time data and public displays, but it would be great to give these numbers some sort of context… How many cars have passed by? How does today’s number compare to the daily average? What data can the Center for Traffic send back to this display. Anyway, this was taken around 7pm and roughly, almost 7000 cyclists had passed by? 14,000 if you estimate the other side of the street. Well done Copenhagen!
I will continue to post observations, inspirations and anything else that I come across in the city or online which may be relevant to urban computing, one of the domains of my final project
