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?
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??
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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?
there are payphones, but not many, and a lot of the ones that are outside are not maintained. they're often broken and filthy.
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@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??
I'm about 90 percent confident they aren't doing the tracking stuff at this point since in seven years it's never been used for anything and, due to this video, but also protests and articles they say the cameras are "turned off."
Also their only income is ads, not data.
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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 @mayintoronto I carry a loaded battery pack to recharge with. Or do you mean something else?
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@futurebird @mayintoronto I carry a loaded battery pack to recharge with. Or do you mean something else?
I mean public charging stations.
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@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
Looks like a very similar design. I wonder what London does with those cameras?
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I mean public charging stations.
@futurebird @deborahh Toronto has all of these things on transit, but not on the street. Every now and then you might come across a payphone still, but they're rare now.
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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 am aware of one (1) payphone on a major street corner in my town. Does that count?
Depends on how big the town is? Is one phone enough?
