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Noriko-san subway sleeping mask lets other passengers know to where to wake you, looks really cool
We've accomplished many an hour of restful, mugger-prone napping on the subway, but there's always the danger of missing your stop -- a problem we're usually too drowsy to consider at 2am in the morning. Not clever hacker Pyocotan, however. This resourceful fellow has built the Noriko-san sleeping mask for fashion-forward commuters, which broadcasts your destination to fellow passengers on a garish LED display, while you're busy getting some shut-eye underneath the mask -- in the hope that they'll be kind enough to wake you up at the right stop after they've rid you of your iPod and wallet. With a cost of $200 in parts, and considerable impracticality to boot, this device isn't quite ready for the commercial sphere, but that's of little concern to Pyocotan -- he's just busy being awesome. Video is after the break.[Via Make]
DS Daily: Best place to bust out the DS?
One of the best things about the DS is that it's just so darn easy to transport. That means you can get your game on wherever and whenever. Stuck on the train? Time to game! Visiting the relatives during the holidays? Find a lonely corner and boot that sucker up (or even get your elders in on the action!). Our question is: where do you find is the best place for you to game? Where do you find is the best place for you to spend some quality time with your favorite handheld?
O2 testing mobile wallet on London's Tube
Combining an Oyster card, a Barclaycard Visa, and the NFC-enabled Nokia 6131, Transport for London hopes to stream passengers through its tunnels in a quick and orderly fashion. 500 testers have been flitting about the city for six months and nine out of the ten say they've enjoyed the ease of use, convenience and status of such fun tech. The tweaked sets have enabled the testers to use their existing travel cards, top up pre-pay cards, and even buy snacks while on the run. RFID hacks aside, we welcome any and all use of a mobile wallet system -- that Japan has enjoyed for some four years now -- to help ease those arduous and time-consuming treks into our pockets and reduce the always embarrassing display of pocket lint.[Thanks, Daniel M.]
HD goes underground in London's Tube
Light control is probably the biggest challenge to a good projection setup. The subterranean nature of London's subway is pretty much ideal in that regard, and now CBS Outdoor has brought its cross-track projection (XTP) system to the Tube. The Piccadilly Circus, Euston, Bank, Liverpool Street and Bond Street stations have been outfitted with a total of 23 14-foot screens that are getting HD video ads beamed onto them, sans audio (thankfully). There are plans to build out to 150 XTP screens and compliment them with 2,000 digital screens Tube-wide, which all fits in with CBS Outdoors' plans to bathe subway riders in advertisement. If ad-targeting tech is brought into the equation, we see some potential for really embarrassing hilarity. Meanwhile, London readers are encouraged to let us all know how the picture XTP quality is holding up!
PSP beating DS ... on New York subway trains
The poor PSP has spent most of its life getting kicked in the teeth by the rampaging DS in all major regions; even taking into account its recent strong performance in Japan, there's no doubt that Sony's machine has come in a firm second place. But look, here comes MTV's Stephen Totilo, and he's bearing good news for Sony executives everywhere: the PSP is the most popular handheld in New York City! Well, alright, on the New York City subway. Okay, on the New York subway's "C Train". Hey, the little victories count as well!Totilo reached this summary through the simplest, most non-scientific method ever: over the course of a year, he mentally tallied up how many of each handheld he saw played on the subway, and eventually counted 67 PSPs, 44 DSes, 6 Game Boy Advances, and 0 Gizmondos. While he treats his findings light-heartedly (as you should), Totilo concludes that this preference for the PSP is due to the typical subway commuter being older and having a higher disposable income and being on the same subway train as Stephen Totilo.It's a very specific survey.
The DS Life: Indiana
Today's profiled figure: "A professor of archeology, expert on the occult, and how does one say it? Obtainer of rare antiquities." You already know who it is, but grab your hat and whip, anyway, and meet us past the post break for some look-alike treasure.
The DS Life: The coolest guy on the train
As a somewhat respectable grown-up who makes a somewhat living on the Nintendo DS subculture, I have to stop myself from trying to see what someone's playing whenever I spot a handheld gamer in the wild. I restrain myself for two reasons: I like to keep up this illusion of me being a somewhat respectable grown-up I don't want anyone mistaking me for a pedophile just because I was stealing glances at some kid's Piplup Children, though, have no such reservations with running up to a stranger to see what he's playing ...
The DS Life: Motherly love
The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handheld and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.As our own Alisha Karabinus can likely attest, raising a baby leaves little time for anything else in your daily schedule. Taking care of everything you need to do requires some creative multitasking. Jump past the break to see what we mean!
WiFi trial comes to San Francisco's BART trains
Merely hours after hearing that a contactless payment trial was going live on San Francisco's BART, along comes word that a test of a slightly different nature was also underway on the very same public transportation system. Reportedly, a recent Wi-Fi Rail installation on a select stretch of track proved that WiFi could be delivered to passengers at around 15Mbps -- up and down -- and if things go smoothly, the firm hopes to get its technology onto all sorts of rail systems across the globe. Unfortunately, there doesn't look to be any firm plans for the trial to stick on BART, but who knows, keep on refreshing that nearby network list on the morning commute and you might just get lucky.
Zealot leaps onto subway tracks to retrieve iPhone
At first listen, one may assume that leaping onto subway tracks for an iPhone is completely and utterly insane, and while we'd tend to agree, it's not like we haven't seen folks do similarly zany things in the heat of the moment. Reportedly, a vacationer in New York recently dropped his iPhone down onto the subway tracks while shuttling back home, and after realizing his dear mobile was missing and backtracking quite a ways, his pal finally spotted it down below. As you can probably imagine, the crazed owner leaped down, snagged the scratched up (but still fully functional) device and managed to climb back out unscathed. Granted, we can only imagine how painful it would be to drop even more dough on yet another iPhone when all that stands between you and your current one is a leap of faith, but we'd probably just ask one of those friendly MTA employees to help us out before going mano a mano with the Reaper.[Via Switched]
Three carriers now offering service on Boston's subway
It seems that one of the last few cellphone-proof havens in the world is giving in at a fairly brisk pace now, with New York most notably committing to adding phone service in train stations. After a couple of aborted attempts in years past, Boston's T has now signed up to do the same with AT&T lighting up service in four stations this week (Verizon and T-Mobile did the same earlier this month). Though your call's currently going to drop as soon as the train leaves the station, the plan is to eventually blanket tunnels and other stations -- assuming carriers see that customers are using the service and are willing to foot the bill. The transit authority has wisely already put up signs in trains encouraging folks to keep calls quiet and quick, though with any luck, the racket of the trains and the crowds will limit most usage to data and texting anyhow.[Via textually.org and ITBusinessEdge]
London's Heathrow Express to get half-kilometer-long LED video display
Because all of the posters plastered on every single surface on the inside of the cars is clearly not enough advertising for your average subway passenger, London is poised to light up a half-kilometer-long LED display in the tunnel between Heathrow and Paddington Station. Manufactured by Canadian firm SideTrack, the simulated video system -- which is composed of 360 individual LED bars synchronized to train speeds -- will replace a static version already installed along the same Heathrow Express route, thus allowing officials to change the message without swapping out physical signage. No word yet on who the premiere advertiser will be, but this medium would seem like a good way for rental car companies to make a compelling point: "Avoid these crappy ads, rent from Avis next time."[Thanks, Jamie D.]
iTrain, an NYC Subway guide on the iPhone
Reader Roger Kenny tipped us off to his cool site for iPhone-using New York Subway travelers. We've seen iPhone subway maps for New York before, and of course Google Maps is always available on the iPhone, but Roger's site goes even further. Not only can you see maps of the lines (via links to the MTA's website) and get directions (via HopStop), but he's also put together an RSS reader that will scroll subway alerts, and other news sites, across the top of your iPhone. If you spend any amount of time navigating New York's subways, it's definitely worth a bookmark.I wish we had something like it for Chicago. Yes, our El stops (although, strangely enough, while I was writing this story it occurs to me that everyone in Chicago actually calls it "the train"-- I haven't heard it called the El since I moved here) are on Google Maps, but has anyone seen an iPhone "transit portal" for the Windy City? If so, toss it in the comments below, and those of us with big shoulders will thank you.
New York's subway stations to be wired for cellphones
After holding out for years, MTA has finally caved to the public's demand for cellphones in New York subways. New York City Transit has announced a deal with Transit Wireless, who's forking out $46.8 million over 10 years for the privilege of installing service in the 277 underground stations currently lacking coverage. Cell phone providers will have to pay Transit Wireless for their customers to be able to roam onto the subway network, but it's hard to feel sorry for them: a consortium of major providers, including Verizon and Sprint offered up a mere $40 (not a typo) to install similar coverage. The good news for subway passengers loathe to have the privacy of their commute interrupted by rude cellphone talkers is that coverage won't be extended to train tunnels, only the stations, meaning passengers will have to take care of business before they get on the train. Proponents cite the need for passengers to be able to text message and call out of stations in the case of emergencies, but we're just glad to finally step into a station without going through internet withdrawls. The first six stations should have coverage in two years, and once proven the system will expand to the rest of the stations in the following four years.[Via textually.org]
Promotional Consideration: Underground Brain Training
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.Those of you lucky enough to live in a city with a rapid transit system have likely seen at least one ad for a handheld game during your commutes. After all, what better audience to advertise a portable title to than people who're trapped in a high-speed steel car full of strangers while they wait to be ferried from one spot to another? In honor of Brain Age 2's release in the states last week, we'll be looking at a few ads we found for Nintendo's educational software that've appeared in transit stations in countries like Canada and France. Join us past the post break for this week's edition of Promotional Consideration.
Manhattan adventures with a 20-inch "laptop"
Those crazies over at LAPTOP Magazine got it in their heads to do a bit of social experimentin' with one of Dell's 18 pound XPS M2010 monstrosities. They lugged the 20-inch system through the subway, a Starbucks and a park in search of reactions from Manhattanites, and while we won't spoil all the surprises, the fact that they even got noticed on the subway is quite a testament to the fact that this thing just doesn't belong off a desk. (We even got mugged and beaten for our RAZR one time, and not a person batted an eye.) In summary, you'd have to be a bit off your rocker -- and/or an editor at a consumer tech magazine with way too much free time -- to attempt a portable lifestyle with the M2010, but we're guessing you could've figured that one out one your own.
Loco Roco takes over Japanese subways
Sony's hoping that with their new subway ad campaign, that people will be going as cuckoo for Loco Roco as the people in this new Japanese CM (below). This new marketing push plasters the walls of the Omote-sando train station and stretches 30 meters long. More interestingly, the ads run the saccharin-sweet theme music from the game. Whether or not this will make the Japanese populace smile gleefully, or get incredibly annoyed, has yet to be discovered.[Via Gamespot] See also: Awesome new LocoRoco ad
Fuss over Sony PSP ads in the UK
In the wake of Sony's graffiti-fuelled advertising campaign, the games giant has tried a fresh start, plastering public transport in the UK with enticing slogans. However, the slogans seem to have caused more trouble than necessary; an advert on a Manchester platform encouraging travellers to "take a running jump" has been deemed inappropriate and is due to be removed.Elsewhere, in London, large Tube ads encouraging users to seemingly fill their PSPs with porn have caused some confusion. Could this be another attempt to whip up interest in Sony's advertising campaign, or are they simply a couple of misguided messages that looked better in the boardroom?[Thanks, Dave]
Keep iPod away from the third rail
There's an amusing story in the New York Times this morning about a man and his iPod. Having been long separated from his companion (it had been away for repairs for a couple of months), Thomas Beller was glad to finally have his iPod back. While rushing to catch the subway, he watched in shock as the iPod fell from his coat, skidded across the floor and slipped into that small space between the platform and the train. It was down on the tracks. What happened next...well, we'll just let you read the article. Let's just say he really loves his iPod. Who could blame him?
Jared's nemesis in hysterical webcomic
When Subway's Jared Fogle blamed his NES for making him fat, gamers everywhere rolled their eyes. Gamers like John Pading, who skewered the accusation with a three-panel comic, inspired by Se7en, entitled "Eat Fresh." The 24-year-old Pading noted, " Subway spokesman Jared Fogle's right in saying videogames made him fat. Before I got my NES, I was like 60 pounds, maybe. Now, I weigh more than twice that."Best part: the orange Zapper.
