Next micro business, some kid with Photoshop charging 20 bucks to change the times on the sign for your fine protest letter.
Sydney adopts 'world's first' e-ink parking signs
The Australian city of Sydney has adopted e-ink-equipped parking signs. Slovenian vendor Visionect says the State of New South Wales' Road and Maritime Services (RMS) agency has adopted its digital signage to ease the chore of changing signs to reflect coming events. As Vulture South well knows, Sydney's sclerotic roads …
COMMENTS
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Sunday 26th July 2015 23:54 GMT hitmouse
Sydney Council has already done that with the old signs - they put up event signs after I'd parked, and then fined me.
The NSW State Recovery Office is an unassailable pit from whence fine notices are issued and no discussions may be entered into. My solicitor thinks its appalling - the only way to contest is in court, usually meaning you lose more in wages missed than in erroneous fine monies recovered.
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Monday 27th July 2015 08:27 GMT Bob H
Re: Fantastic!
The article says they are "equipped with mobile broadband", I'm a little surprised at this, I would have thought that zigbee/z-wave or similar would have been lower power or even better some kind of MW carrier because the data requirement is low and the update periods are probably very long.
Who knows, perhaps they update them via SMS!?
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Monday 27th July 2015 09:24 GMT Stuart Castle
Re: Fantastic!
"The article says they are "equipped with mobile broadband", I'm a little surprised at this, I would have thought that zigbee/z-wave or similar would have been lower power or even better some kind of MW carrier because the data requirement is low and the update periods are probably very long.
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The advantage, from a cost point of view, of mobile broadband (or even SMS which doesn't need broadband and would probably suffice) is that it's cheaper to install as the infrastructure is probably already there.
This, I believe, is why the "next bus" displays in London (which TFL call Countdown) use existing mobile networks rather than zigbee or z-wave. if they'd have gone for Zigbee, z-wave or MW, they'd have to maintain their own infrastructure and, in the case of MW, there may be licencing hurdles to get over. By using the mobile networks, they've bypassed all that as the operator has already installed the infrastructure and already has licences for the frequencies their network uses.
And, would the power savings be that great? Bearing in mind that a simple mobile phone (ie not smart) can run for several days on a small battery, the current used to connect a digital sign to a broadband network is likely to be a fraction of the current required to run the sign (or even light it at night).
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Sunday 26th July 2015 22:59 GMT LaeMing
Nice to see a governnment department using technology in a proactive manner. Using in-house engineering too, rather than out-sourcing to a dollar-drain.
They better watch it though. This is exactly the sort of forward-thinking technological innovation the feds are trying to stamp out here.
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Monday 27th July 2015 01:25 GMT Mark 85
Even though the picture is either well out of date or taken during some sort of testing, this could be useful and on the surface seems a great idea.
But the "ifs" apply.. If they don't ticket you if you're parked there when the sign changes. If they give everyone a heads up that the signs are going to change. If these things have some excellent security. If.. if.... if.... from the comments by those who live there, this may very well turn out to be a nightmare.
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Monday 27th July 2015 02:12 GMT msknight
Disconenction
The more I look at stuff like this, the more I believe we've missed the opportunity to move forward.
I mean, making signs and things reactionary is great; but what about the sat nav on my dash that doesn't know about this event.
OK, so that requires centralisation, and thereby the big question of who owns it and how is it funded ... but that, I think, is becoming an ever more urgent nut to crack before we can really benefit from all this; because otherwise we've got all these things working in isolation.
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Monday 27th July 2015 10:00 GMT TeeCee
Re: Disconenction
but what about the sat nav on my dash that doesn't know about this event.
Maybe you should think about getting one that understands TMS so it does know about this sort of thing?
Then of course there's the whole "connected car" thing on the way...... which seems to have a massive trailerload of FAIL in tow so it's probably best to stick with the working stuff we have now.
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Monday 27th July 2015 19:39 GMT TheOtherMe
Great use of language
"sclerotic" - a very apt word for describing the appalling road conditions that are Sydney.
And from now on when one parks, get out and take time-stamped photo of proximal appropriate sign before leaving the area - avoiding the potential: "but it changed after I parked" - "Oh yeah, prove it" argument that will ensue.