A great find today from CP of a bird’s eye view of the Boston Rapid Transit System back in the 1940’s and 50’s. According to the image description, this version of the map is a bit different than today’s Boston T map because the lines shown here are of a different color than what they are today (today’s Red Line was blue, today’s Orange Line was red, and today’s Blue Line was orange).
The current colors were switched during a system wide rebranding when the MBTA was created.
Streetsblog posted this video of a disguised Volvo S60 prototype that the company is testing in Copenhagen that has a computer system which can essentially detect possible pedestrian collisions and prevent them from happening.
The system basically uses a series of sensors that detect objects around the car and if the car seems to be headed for a collision, the vehicle will either 1) slow down significantly if it is going over 25km/h; or 2) stop completely if it is already going under 25km/h.
Certainly an interesting idea and I really wonder how well this system would hold up in a city as crowded and fast-moving as NYC. Volvo hopes to have some sort of pedestrian detection system in their S60 vehicles by 2010 if all goes well in testing.
Game cartridges usually outlast the game consoles they go with, which means that some people end up having a lot of old games lying around without a system to play them on. If you’re one of those people with a heck of a lot of NES and SNES games, then the Retro Duo NES/SNES gaming system is probably what you want if you want to relive the days of 8-bit and 16-bit video games.
The Retro Duo NES/SNES system comes with two top-loading slots for NES and SNES games and two controllers that look like the original SNES game controllers. For less than $50, this looks like a pretty fun game accessory to own.
I found this video from Streetfilms about L.A.’s traffic control system very fascinating. The video is narrated by Bill J. Shao, a senior engineer at ATSAC Operations which stands for Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control.
He talks about how L.A.’s traffic control system is pretty much completely automated now, with only 1 or 2 personnel required to monitor the computers that do all of the calculations and whatnot in terms of traffic. The computer system automatically gives priority to public transportation and can adjust to almost any type of traffic situation such as accidents and congestion. The entire system is also a great tool for the city of Los Angeles to mine traffic data, as every bit of information that goes through the system gets collected and compiled to show how heavy traffic is and how slow/fast traffic is moving.
I couldn’t embed the video, so you’ll have to watch it here.
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each for $45.
