Years ago I did a video about "Link NYC" I was mostly concerned about the possibility of surveillance through the cameras.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird
Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Smallish city, 133k people. Between Toronto and Ottawa, part of neither.No real way to charge phones on the street.
We have had municipal WiFi at different times and qualities, but the project hasn't ever lasted very long.
No municipal information screens, just a tourist information place downtown near city hall.
I have seen payphones on occasion in recent years, though most are long gone. You can go into a store and ask to use theirs.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird Our b usses have charging ports and ... based on conversation I heard on bus yesterday, people can get "blocks" to charge their phones from... ("Your next appointment, ask them for a block!" in a convo about all the different options for charging the phone.)
No "municipal info" screens that I know of but there are lots of places (bus terminal, college places) with screens that have alerts for weather and that sort of thing when stuff happens. -
@futurebird I don't live in New York, so I appreciate your video on linkNYC. I'm following Mayor Mamdani's actions with great interest, and curiosity about how applicable his administration's tactics might be elsewhere. So I would love to hear more about how he's using linkNYC.
I tried to see if any of the videos were online anywhere but all I found was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbSlwbCLHbw, which was a helpful press conference but not more detailed than simply mentioning that linkNYC and taxi TV are two channels he's using. The school chancellor referring to the kids eligible for 3-K/pre-K as "New York's cutest" was a sound bite worth watching for though.
I didn't know that the mayor's office could put announcement on linkNYC. But it seems there is some of the screen time that's allotted to the city.
The last two mayors just couldn't be bothered to put much effort into it.
There were simple text announcements but nothing like the mayor explaining important deadlines.
Which seems like a public relations no-brainer. But it's also more effective at getting people to pay attention.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
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@futurebird I don't live in New York, so I appreciate your video on linkNYC. I'm following Mayor Mamdani's actions with great interest, and curiosity about how applicable his administration's tactics might be elsewhere. So I would love to hear more about how he's using linkNYC.
I tried to see if any of the videos were online anywhere but all I found was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbSlwbCLHbw, which was a helpful press conference but not more detailed than simply mentioning that linkNYC and taxi TV are two channels he's using. The school chancellor referring to the kids eligible for 3-K/pre-K as "New York's cutest" was a sound bite worth watching for though.
The videos were much shorter and catcher than what you linked. They were produced to fit the screen shape, and had big text since there is no sound.
They were short enough you could get the main idea walking by.
These are EVERYWHERE it's the biggest screen network in the city.
They make enough on ads to run the system and it's in good repair even after all these years.
I don't know if I believe them about the cameras being turned off, but link footage has never surfaced.
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@futurebird@sauropods.win does charging with a powerbank count? i mean, i can do that in any city
No. This is about having a public place to charge.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
“Ant futurebird” chic is my homie folks so in jest…
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Why you be on the street in NYC?
You hanging with Rosie Perez ?
️ and thanks for the vid info -
The videos were much shorter and catcher than what you linked. They were produced to fit the screen shape, and had big text since there is no sound.
They were short enough you could get the main idea walking by.
These are EVERYWHERE it's the biggest screen network in the city.
They make enough on ads to run the system and it's in good repair even after all these years.
I don't know if I believe them about the cameras being turned off, but link footage has never surfaced.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
Hmm. I think the backlash to this kind of system being a way to collect data made it not spread to other cities as much.
Because the data is what's really worth the most with this system. The ads are fine, you can raise enough to keep it running and have staff and that's great... but that's not what some of the early supporters were hoping for.
And so they moved on to those wicked traffic cameras and other schemes.
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@futurebird Awesome, you've answered almost every question I had. Last one, I think, is were the clips translated into multiple languages?
Yes, and the languages are localized by neighborhood because that's one of the features of the system.
So I don't see the ones in Chinese up in the Bronx, but I do get English and Spanish.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird i've seen some electrical outlets on poles and sides of buildings but i've never tried them -
Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird Pretty sure you're actually living in the future there.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird london has these (https://global.com/outdoor/roadside/street-hub-advertising/, https://business.bt.com/public-sector/street-hubs/street-hubs-for-the-public/) which seem useful but I've never had to use, apparently they're also in other uk cities
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird Some parks have phone charging stations, but only ones laid out or revamped in the past few years. Which is very much not all parks.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird here in the UK we have phone boxes. I guess you'd call them phone booths?
Not nearly as many as there used to be, but they're still a thing.
Municipal info boards are not a standard thing. I don't think we have any in my city. There are lots of ad screens.
I don't think I've ever seen a phone charging point on the street. They're common on busses and trains, but not just out and about. -
The videos were much shorter and catcher than what you linked. They were produced to fit the screen shape, and had big text since there is no sound.
They were short enough you could get the main idea walking by.
These are EVERYWHERE it's the biggest screen network in the city.
They make enough on ads to run the system and it's in good repair even after all these years.
I don't know if I believe them about the cameras being turned off, but link footage has never surfaced.
@futurebird @jamey lol not pictured: the one on New Dorp Lane. These things really are EVERYWHERE
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@futurebird here in the UK we have phone boxes. I guess you'd call them phone booths?
Not nearly as many as there used to be, but they're still a thing.
Municipal info boards are not a standard thing. I don't think we have any in my city. There are lots of ad screens.
I don't think I've ever seen a phone charging point on the street. They're common on busses and trains, but not just out and about.there are some kinds of combined ad screen / local information board / telephone in my town (Ipswich, UK), I think they are operated by British Telecom. I think you can plug in a USB to charge phones with them (its also allowed to charge devices in the library, although that depends on their opening hours)
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird Toronto still has payphones, but mostly in the subways, where they have a special button to call the police but can be used for regular calls as well. So I said "none of these," because it's technically not on the street but on subway platforms.
There are also screens in the subway as well and the show time to next train, plus news and ads. Otherwise, publicly sanctioned ads (to pay the company that does trash and recycling pickup) are static, but may be PSAs.
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Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird i'm in portland (oregon) and i don't think we really have any of these? you might be able to go into a library and charge your phone there but i don't think that counts as "on the street"
we also have a free volunteer-run public telephone network called Futel, which is really awesome and allows anyone to anonymously make calls but it's a bit limited in scope - there are around 15 outdoor phones and all but one are in east portland (i.e. not downtown) -
Hey, people in other cities than NYC:
1. Do you have a way to charge your phone on the street?
2. Are there municipal information screens? Do they show ads?
3. Is there public wifi? Is it any good?
4. Can you make a phonecall on the street even if you don't have a cellphone?
@futurebird there was a pedal powered phone charger in cambridge MA for a hot sec but it barely counts. there's no formal way to charge phones I know of. there are lots of ad screens in boston and sometimes they have maps on/near them but usually they don't. there are MBTA ads. it's less useful than linkNYC and someone is probably still tracking bluetooth+wifi mac addresses in some more subtle way??
