28 August 2009

Street computers

Seoul is one of the world’s most wired city, and the recent “ubiquitous city” project aims to increase the level of connectivity citizens experience on the street. One of the most visible part of the u-city is the media poles forest, tenth of computers embedded into high poles offering services like news, submay and bus maps, email postcard, 3D avatar game, casual games, shopping/restaurant locator and Flickr photo gallery (more). This sort of rich country’s version of the hole in the wall is extremely popular, and many couples and groups gather around the screens to share a moment playing games or sending a postcard.

^{Four young girls pose at a “media pole” on Gangnam Avenue. Photo by Time}

I made a short video to show those computers who bring people together instead of isolating them.

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30 August 2008

GPS taxi for Korean women

Hae-in – who is one of the members of the Lift team here in Korea – told me about “Navi Call Taxi”, a pretty cool service that women can use to be driven home safely. The concept is quite simple, even if I am afraid that we won’t see it anytime soon in Europe…

Call a taxi and give your location AND destination
The car picks you up, people you choose (parents/friends) receive a SMS with the name and number of the taxi you are in
The car is tracked via GPS in real time
If the car deviates from the normal trajectory (remember your destination is known and entered in GPS) an alarm is triggered.

The service was created after an incident where two girls got murdered by a taxi driver in this normally super safe country.

The combination of geo-localization and telecommunication technologies with our daily life will produce millions of opportunities for new and useful services like this one. More information about this future in Lift Asia’s Networked city session on Friday morning with Jeffrey Huang, Adam Greenfield and Yang Soo-In.