San Francisco gets interactive taxis:
” 200 taxi cabs in San Francisco are now being outfitted with touch screen systems that will provide passengers with restaurant listings, movie showings, news, sports scores and, of course, plenty of advertising. The systems from Interactive Taxi Co. were first rolled out in NYC during a one year experiment that ended in August 2003 (apparently no one like having a screen blare at them). Wireless access is provided by Verizon’s cellular network with technology from PeerDirect to permit continued access even when the cab is in a cellular dead zone. But it doesn’t look like you can just browse the full web with the devices, as access is limited to ‘specialized’ content. If the connection’s already there, why not just turn each cab into a rolling WiFi hotspot so we can use our own, less limited devices? We know it’s a little unrealistic, but there are cabs in Australia that offer this.
[ Via Engadget ]