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Arizona school bus gains WiFi, students suddenly chill out and get productive
Who woulda thunk it? Giving WiFi to fidgety students on a bus actually makes them more productive. Nearly three years after an Arkansas school launched a trial that delivered laptops, iPods and wireless internet to a bus, an Arizona school district is discovering the merits of such a system -- though with this one, there stands a good chance for it to go well beyond the "pilot" phase. Students in Vail, Arizona have been able to handle school assignments, engage in research and even update their Facebook status on the lengthy rides to and from school, and the suits responsible for hooking Bus No. 92 up have stated that mischief has all but subsided and the bus has magically morphed into something of a "rolling study hall." As you'd expect, Autonet Mobile is responsible for the technology (the same company equipping select GM vehicles with in-car WiFi), and it has already sold similar tech to schools or districts in Florida, Missouri and Washington, DC. We always dreamed of being whisked off to another lousy school day on the GamerBUS, but this ain't a half bad alternative. [Thanks, Nate]
DOT bars bus drivers and commercial truckers from texting while driving
It's coming. And soon. Of course, you know darn well we're referring to the day where no human in any nation can text and drive legally, and we're seeing the US Department of Transportation get us one step closer with its latest mandate. Effective immediately, bus drivers and interstate commercial truckers are disallowed from texting while operating a motor vehicle, and should they choose to send that one last SMS anyway, they'll be hit with "civil or criminal fines of up to $2,750." Needless to say, the Advocates for Highway Safety are pretty stoked about the notion, but they confess that this isn't taking things far enough. And for anyone who has been sideswiped by someone special telling someone more special "I LUVRZ U XOXO LOL" while doing 80 on the I-15, well, they'd probably concur.
DesignLine turbine hybrid buses take off in NYC, could multiply soon
Capstone's CMT-380 has proven that turbines, batteries and an unconditional love for Ma Earth actually can get along within the confines of an automobile, and now it looks as if the same type of technology will be touching a lot more lives in and around New York City. DesignLine, a New Zealand-based company with an "experimental turbine hybrid" of the same name, is currently being used in three buses in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and unlike petrol-powered alternatives, these are said to be as "quiet as a tomb." They're also environmentally friendly, omitting internal combustion altogether and relying on spinning turbines to recharge a Li-ion battery that powers the wheels. If the trial goes over well, 87 more of the $559,000 buses could be ushered into operation, and you'll know one's coming due to the shocking absence of creaking, sputtering and black haze rounding the bend to your stop. [Thanks, Yossi]
MacBook Air meets bus, bus wins
Struggling to find a little something to be grateful for on this day of Thanksgiving? How about the fact that this isn't your laptop? While details are a tad sketchy, it seems that the owner of this MacBook Air somehow let his prized possession slip under a bus, which promptly drove right over it. Amazingly, the Air does apparently still work (apart from a little issue with the screen), although it's pretty clear that the bus came out ahead in this match-up. Hit up the link below for a few more pics. [Thanks, Akouris]
Hybrid2 public bike concept promises to help power city buses
Hybrid bikes are one thing, but designer Chiyi Chen looks to have something far grander in mind for his Hybrid2 bike concept, which he says could one day help power fleets of city buses. To do that, the hybrid part of the bike (a regenerative braking system) wouldn't be used to help power the bike itself at all, but would instead store the energy in an ultracapacitor that'd then feed the energy back into the grid when its parked at a special bike stand, which would in turn be used to help charge the hybrid electric buses. Not one to overlook an ingenious little detail, Chen has also devised a special card RFID card that would not only be used to unlock the bike, but keep track of the energy that each rider generates -- build up enough credits and you can ride the bus for free. Intrigued? Head on past the break for a video overview from the man himself.[Via Inhabitat]
Sony uses colorful bus to lure kids into playing PSP
Were it not for the plethora of PSP games hidden inside, we'd be wary of letting our children into a bus as colorful and suspicious as this one. SCEE has kicked off its "Summer of PSP" campaign by touring the UK with this gaudy, NAMBLA-approved vehicle. Here's the schedule: 11th and 12 July – Chessington World of Adventures, Chessington, Surrey 24th to 26th July – Camp Bestival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset 2nd August – Underage Festival, Victoria Park, London 3rd to 9th August – Chessington World of Adventures, Chessington, Surrey 10th to 16th August - Thorpe Park, Chertsey, Surrey With a venue like "Underage Festival," we're even more suspicious of this bus. Surely, this is some kind of Dateline NBC trap?
Raleigh, North Carolina buses get on-board DTV
Planning to hop on a bus in Raleigh, North Carolina anytime soon? Then there's a chance you could be treated to an added distraction during your trip, as the city has just rolled out its first CAT bus equipped with mobile DTV, which looks to be one of the first projects resulting from those MPH tests that took place last year. This little bit of magic also comes courtesy of a little help from LG and Harris Corp., who are supplying the displays and mobile transmission equipment for the pilot program, which will be expanded to five buses by August, with another 20 planned for the second phase that'll run though August 2010. Of course, your viewing options will be somewhat limited, with a simulcast of local station WRAL apparently the only channel on tap, along with some weather information and, of course, a healthy dose of advertising. [Thanks, Dana]
Play Chinatown Wars early during promo van tour
Rockstar currently has GTA: Chinatown Wars on a pre-launch (post-launch, in some cases) sampling tour across the United States. The locales will allow people to play the game before its March 17 release, plus "limited-edition Rockstar apparel" will be given away. Check our the full list of dates and locations after break.Of course, the real fun comes if and when somebody manages to carjack one of these promotional vans. (Seriously, don't do that.)[Via RockstarWatch]
Oslo rolls out biomethane-powered busses
The city of Oslo is getting down and dirty with a new scheme for its public transportation. Adding "minor modifications" to 80 of the city's public busses will allow them to run on biomethane fuel produced from raw sewage. The buses are apparently much quieter, and are more eco-friendly than biogas, with zero net carbon emissions. The leader of the project, Ole Jakob Johansen, also says that the city should save about €.40 per liter on fueling the busses. The trial is part of Oslo's plan to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and they hope to soon have the entire fleet of 400 rolling clean. Waste not, want not, huh? [Via Inhabitat]
Google's Internet-equipped magic bus lights across India
When you spend all of your workday bloggin' it's easy to lose sight of the fact that some folks don't have access to basic utilities, or HDTV, or -- the horror! -- the Internet itself. In the time-honored tradition of Hippies and earnest seekers alike, Google has headed to rural India, where it will be focusing its philanthropic endeavors (or perhaps its shrewd marketing endeavors) for the next month and a half. The company's Internet bus will roll through towns in the state of Tamil Nadu, providing connectivity via satellite, and content and instruction in both English and Tamil to people whose only previous exposure to the online world (if any) has been via cell phone or cyber cafe. This is all part of a broader scheme to expand into the Indian countryside, and if the trip is a success more are sure to follow. The company's services already include transliteration, news, bidirectional machine translation, and soft keyboards for a number of Indian languages, and a host of kick-ass Ravi Shankar tunes now available on Google Video.
Microsoft's desktop-equipped mass transit bus is a boss' dream
Those 45 to 90 minutes you spend stuck in traffic each day, inhaling noxious fumes and watching your paycheck dwindle in the form of consumed gasoline, are about to get a lot more nightmarish should you choose to ride this. Though the origin of these images are unknown, we're assuming they were snapped somewhere in Asia (or the ninth circle of Hades); essentially, this here public transportation option enables riders to login via a connected PC and get to work before work technically begins. Of course, we've all ideas most riders just fire up Quake III and get a little LAN action going, but seriously, what kind of torturous mind thought this up? Ever heard of telecommuting?Update: Seems these buses are all about bringing technology to rural areas that might not otherwise have access. Killer!
Bus driver chooses GPS over gigantic warning sign, plows into overpass
Okay Britons, here's your shot at ripping us Americans who've had quite a few laughs at the expense of your GPS-loving neighbors. Reportedly, the driver of a charter bus carrying a high school girls' softball team decided to casually follow the soothing turn-by-turn directions that were being emitted from the nearby GPS unit rather than actually noticing the enormous clearance sign on the overpass ahead. As you can likely guess, the 11-foot, 8-inch-high vehicle plowed right into the 9-foot bridge -- which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 -- though somehow everyone on board escaped without any major injuries. Oddly enough, the driver apparently isn't alone in chipping away at the landmark, as a local even mentioned that "large trucks hit the bridge every two weeks or so," but couldn't resist noting that "this [instance was] by far the worst."[Thanks, Raleigh]
San Francisco bus getting WiFi, deathmatch to follow
Finally things are starting to get a little more futuristic around here. Beginning next Monday, bus riders in San Francisco will get a chance to hop at least one ride that will take them to the Columbus stop, Van Ness stop... and the World of Tomorrow. Thanks to the combined effort of SF's Muni and Cisco, the "Connected Bus" will be hauling around free WiFi and touchscreen maps on its walls (which will also carry updated connecting transit information). Sure, it's no citywide wireless coverage, but combined with the BART train WiFi rollout, it's certainly a start. Cisco tested the bus with 15 riders checking email and downloading music and movies on laptops, and say that the signal was "strong and uninterrupted," though they admit they haven't tested the system during a 15-player fragfest. Anyone up for a ride?[Thanks, Paul in SF]
Contactless hybrid bus put into service at Tokyo airport
Japan's world's fastest maglev train may still be quite a few years away from becoming a reality, but it looks like the country can now brag about another slightly smaller but similarly contactless vehicle, with a new suitably futuristic bus now making its debut at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. As if that bit of technology wasn't enough, the bus is also a hybrid vehicle, and promises a sixty percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to those old 20th century-style buses. Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of other details at the moment (and what is available is subject to the wonders of machine translation), but it looks like the first bus is already in service, and covering a 4.2 kilometer area around the airport.[Thanks, kaztm]
Camera-equipped buses could automatically ticket San Franciscans
Not long after hearing about England's newfangled auto-ticketing system comes word that San Franciscans could soon be facing something similar. If signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, "forward-facing digital video cameras would be installed on city buses," which would then be used to automatically ticket the owners of vehicles that are caught "blocking buses." The cameras would presumably be used to photograph vehicles that are in bus-only lanes, and interestingly enough, the proposed law also authorizes Municipal Transportation Agency "employees to access sensitive personal data" from the DMV for ticketing purposes.
Bus-y bees advertise Insect Wars' release
We grew up terrified of bees, our fear multiplied tenfold after witnessing Macaulay Culkin's demise in My Girl, so we never imagined just how rippin' rad they could be when militarized. Seriously, guys, wouldn't a huge robot bee with a metal spike stinger and two gatling guns be awesome? You don't need to answer that question; we already know it would be. Nothing could convince us otherwise.The bee image we've featured comes from a bus that Success Corp. decorated to promote this week's release of Konchuu Wars (Insect Wars) in Japan. It's unlikely that North America will ever receive this niche title, an SRPG filled with war machines fashioned after bugs, but we have dreams of someone being tricked into publishing it here someday. A 50-inch plasma television has been installed on the side of the transport, playing battle scenes from the game during the bus' route through Tokyo's Odaiba and Shinjuku districts. The bus will be in operation starting today until August 12th. You can check out a few more photos and see what the buzz is all about after the post break. Success Corp. also added a developer's blog and new description pages for three units to its site over the weekend, one of which is the winged terror pictured above, the other two being an armored pillbug and a blades-for-arms mantis. It's like they're lifting ideas right out of our fifth grade composition notebooks!
Tampa Bay school gets pair of plug-in hybrid buses
From a kid's perspective, we're sure they'd much rather be cruising on the iPod-equipped bus than a vanilla version that gets significantly better mileage, but regardless, a Tampa Bay school will become the first to receive a pair of hybrid buses to shuttle students around while saving between 70 and 100-percent in fuel costs. The vehicles can be fully charged in around six hours, and while the aforementioned improvements are only so drastic for the first "50 miles or so," it's certainly not a bad start. 'Course, school district officials are hoping that fuel savings will eventually lead to more money for classroom improvements, but we reckon it'll be quite some time before the savings on fuel overtakes the up front cost of these (presumably pricey) machines. Click on for a peek at the video.[Via AutoblogGreen]
Author taps out 384-page book using mobile
We're usually pretty proud when we're able to crank out a few emails -- or mediate a discussion gone wrong in the comment section -- on our morning commute. Italian author Robert Burnocco has us trumped in style by actually using T9 and his mobile to cobble together a 384-page book in just 17 weeks. He was inspired to write his mobile opus, Compagni di Viaggio (Travelling companion) on the bus as apparently "In public transport, I realized that my imagination was productive and that the ideas abounded." We aren't sure what the buses are like in Italy, but we are usually just surrounded by lunatics and screaming schoolkids on our morning ride, hardly a top spot for creative endeavors.[Via textually.org]
Because two strange new forms of input just weren't enough
Not content with resting on their sensory laurels, Nintendo decided to just go ahead and make another bizarre form of input (since it seems to be working so well). The upcoming DS title Slide Adventure: Mag Kid (which could use a better marketing team) will feature a "slide sensor" that fits in the GBA slot of the DS. It extends outwards onto the back on the DS, and when the device is placed on a flat surface, the sensor can pick up the sliding motion of the entire unit on said surface. It's a little weird, but it's got some cool potential. It does, however, reduce the true portability of the device, rendering both bus-play and toilet-play completely useless. And we sure do love our toile ... you know what, never mind.[Via Joystiq]
Ruh Roh Shaggy: Art Army Van weds iPod dock, Mystery Machine
We've seen our fair share of far-out iPod docks, but Mike Leavitt's latest go at creating a piece of functional art makes us yearn to bust out the tie-dyed bandannas and throw a Scooby-Doo marathon bash. The Art Army Van is a modified plastic Mystery Machine toy, which now includes a modernized paint scheme, removable rear CD rack, passenger seat-mounted speaker, and the obligatory iPod jack in the captain's chair. The wheeled machine comes in at 10- x 6- x 6-inches in size, and while we're not entirely confident that such a masterpiece is worthy of a whole $200, we can't deny the temptation to snap one up. Click through to see this groove rider in action.
