Last Friday Cell as Fellowsheep
May 14th, 2010 | Published in Blog | 30 Comments
On the RapidKL busses, there are self-running Ad screens at the front of the bus. Once a while, they show decent programming like music videos of latest hits, at others they show ads and public service announcements.
Whenever the bus slows down, the volume gets raised, and a seemingly high-paying advertiser gets his 30 seconds. This has happened several times, I noticed. It seems as though there is an Accelerometer installed on these kiosks. So whenever the thing detects that the bus is stopping (for passengers or traffic lights), the prime sponsor gets his time.
[LISTEN on MP3]
[WATCH on YOUTUBE]
It could be a weird coincidence. But if it isn’t then, I’ll patent this “idea” immediately! At the same time, data can be collected on the bus drivers driving-style. Essentially an accelerometer is also known loosely as a G-Sensor. It has X, Y and Z coordinates to know it’s orientation
My first gadget encounter which had this, was the Canon Powershot camera long time ago. Flip it vertically and your image (review) gets displayed correctly. Amazing piece of technology. And I’m sure the guys at iSuppli who guesses how much the electronic components costs to the manufacturers; well, they’ll tell you it is only 30 American cents for the accelerometer module! And of course, we know that GPS costs only US$3, for the 8 megapixel top-of-the-line camera US$7, for a mobile phone manufacturer to puchase. It’s marketing and differenciation at its best.
So my great idea is, put an Accelerometer on buses and even taxis, to see how the drivers are driving. Reward drivers with smooth readings. Perhaps write guidelines to how to drive efficiently, not so abruptly!
Let me tell you a short story about the Internet. (Now this story has been passed on from BBS -> IRC -> Forums -> Blogs -> Facebook generation to generation)
1. In the beginning was, a small society of electronics geeks who put together a simple online community, on really slow dialup modems. These people are enthusiasts in what they do. The online community back then was on a basis of sharing. We share what we know, we learn from others as they say it. People shared how to hack a Coke machine, shared software (shareware lah), shared general knowledge. Everything. Was. Great.
2. Then came the age of the Internet Explosion. Late 90s, a lot of companies fell into the trap of the Y2K bug (which NEVER happened). They upgraded computers to be compliant. And suddenly there was a huge budget for IT expenditure. Well, that in turn made costs of computers cheap enough to be affordable by many people. With this “internet thing”, more and more people got hooked into the information superhighway.
3. Everything seemed good for a while. Modem companies shipped the 56k modem and convinced you in funny ways why that is faster than 33.6k modems! If you put in today’s context, it is like streamyx offering new package, a 1.02 Mbit/s speeds vs their current 1 Mbit. Of course, last time it was text-and-graphics heavy while today’s bandwidth requirements are mostly for rich new multimedia. (haven’t heard the word “multimedia” for a while, media is the new buzzword!)
Then came the greedy multinationals and entrepreneurs. The greedy bastards whose sole purpose is to suck all your money by selling you air. Literally.
Look, if you’re a noodle seller, you buy your noodles and ingredients and rental for an average, say RM 2. And you charge me RM 3 for a bowl of noodles. I’d GLADLY pay you your premium. You earned it, you deserved it.
But the Internet economy is in such a way that, you can buy Fake Gold, Fake virtual points and money for online reputation improvements. That is just a rip off.
Then you might argue, well, how about Software developers? Microsoft Office took time and R&D budgets to design. The end product is, a DVD with the installer, (nowadays even downloadable versions) and you pay a hefty US$400 (depending on your country). Every extra copy of Office, minus development costs, is just like selling you air, right?
Meh, yeah, you’re right. Things change, the noodle seller won’t get uber rich by selling at a RM 1 profit. New gimmicks such as “franchises” really rips off the genuine people who GENUINELY deserve to be rich. The coffee shop concept has been there for centuries. But “Old Town” kopitiam, boy, that’s a whole new beast. You wanna franchise? That’s RM 1 million for a full setup. That’s insane – just to use the name / set up.
Oh, where was I… yeah, internet story.
What am I’m trying to point out is that, the INTERNET should be free. It was free when it first started. You just paid a minimal fee to get connected and that’s it. All the information and whatever you need is free.
Marketing people screw things up by trying to monetise stuff. They way they do it; like stealing your personal information for example, not a good thing. FAKE promises, also. This is an issue that really grinds my gears. Let’s say you are a developer of a game, and you say “Up to 50,000 active users”. I go ahead and pay, log on.. and find out that the claims were false. Now THAT is really dishonest. Your wordings may have protected your legal ass. You knowlingly mislead your clients and users. In my books, that is plain dishonest!
4. Good news is: the future internet will be a re-birth. We are going back to where we started. Twitter is about sharing. Youtube, Facebook is about sharing pictures, videos & links. If you DARE or even decide to charge your users, you will lose them, thousands of them will leave by the hour.
5. We have come to a point where the community is slowly giving back to one another on the internet. Not just leeching. Now this includes “pirated illegal stuff” where you tend to see more people seeding torrents now.
6. I guess the problems in the world has brought us nearer. Soon enough, we have a social support network online where all your needs are and can be met. FOR FREE.
Today, 14 May 2010 is our last cell group gathering as Fellowsheep United, SS2.
Last cell.
It’s quite a sad occation, to finally end this thing.. Because of something happening on Sunday…
Check this space.
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May 14th, 2010 at 11:11 am (#)
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May 14th, 2010 at 2:05 pm (#)
The Zune concentrates on being a Portable Media Player. Not a web browser. Not a game machine. Maybe in the future it’ll do even better in those areas, but for now it’s a fantastic way to organize and listen to your music and videos, and is without peer in that regard. The iPod’s strengths are its web browsing and apps. If those sound more compelling, perhaps it is your best choice.
May 14th, 2010 at 3:13 pm (#)
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