TrainData : Simon Perry: Schemes, dreams & trivia

"There's no magic formula that says A plus C equals X" - Terry Venables (source:Colemanballs, Private Eye)

TrainData

21st December 2002 by Simon

I started thinking the other day, trains are a great place to distribute data and as most journeys are pretty long, large amounts of data could be transferred. With a sufficiently fast wireless connection, it should be realistic to request a piece of video at the beginning of a journey on your PDA/smartphone/e-ring/Artificial Retinal Stimulator [PDF p23], and while you check your mail/stock/eBay auctions, the video would announce it’s arrival at some pointduring that journey. The old adage is, that if you can do it with video, you won’t be having a problem with the audio.

I’m not talking about it being live external access, which I would have thought would be pretty hard, especially in tunnelled cities. It would just be a repository and exchange point.

Some people dread the day when this kind of thing is possible, they fear people becoming islands, buried in their own devices, not communicating with the people around them.

The UK government are funding a simulator that is available at many locations through out the London area. The price of the ticket vary depending how long you want to stay on, with all day tickets available. Sadly the funding hasn’t extended far enough to implement the technology, as yet … if ever.

I’ve tried it and found it very calming - it’s called the London Tube.

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