LinkNYC’s Smart City Road Wart
Will these rotted wood pylons, intended to indicate where LinkNYC kiosks are supposed to be installed, end up as preëmptive tombstones for the Smart City "revolution"?
Access to MTA Maps Blocked by LinkNYC
CityBridge blocking access to MTA subway and bus maps seems like another Smart City example of something that is harder to get wrong than to get right.
LinkNYC: How Did We Get Here?
A little bit of history on how and why New York City's phone booths of the past evolved into LinkNYC.
Rough Couple of Weeks for CityBridge/LinkNYC
From its payphones to its financial failings, CityBridge and its LinkNYC program had a rough couple of weeks.
Intersection to Build an Open Data Dashboard for LinkNYC
I hope whoever gets this internship uses better data than CityBridge currently publishes at NYC.gov. If the current public dataset is all this future intern has to work with then I don't see the point of the Open Data Dashboard for LinkNYC.
711 From LinkNYC: I Spoke Too Soon
I gave myself too much credit in getting someone to fix LinkNYC's inability to connect to the 711 relay service. Oh well.
Remembering the Golden Days of LinkNYC.
“Caller states the Links are well intentioned but poorly executed.; causing problems that did not previously exist”
I Gave LinkNYC Kiosks Another Chance at Making Phone Calls
I gave the phone calling feature of LinkNYC kiosks another chance after an unexpected question from a neighbor. If conditions align just perfectly I find that calls can be made over the kiosks without having to scream.
711 Now Connects From LinkNYC
The 711 Relay Service is now reachable from LinkNYC, and I'm going to go ahead and give myself some credit for this.
My LinkNYC Number Crunching Gets Some Respect
With help from reporters at THECITY I learned that at least some of the information found in the LinkNYC Kiosk Status Dataset is accurate. But how much financial damage is CityBridge really feeling from City-issued fines and penalties?
No Access to 711 from CityBridge Payphones or LinkNYC Kiosks
CityBridge, which owns all of NYC's outdoor payphones and LinkNYC kiosks, has disabled access to 711, the free service that allows deaf and mute people to make phone calls.
New LinkNYC Kiosks
They do not appear in the official datasets nor on the Find-a-Link map, but a few new LinkNYC kiosks recently appeared on the Upper East Side.
Unasked Questions About LinkNYC
Coverage of LinkNYC seems always to gravitate toward privacy and surveillance concerns when there are so many more interesting questions to ask.
LinkNYC: 51 Screenchanges, 4 Advertisements. That’s 7.8% Ads, 92.2% Filler.
Last month I surveyed 5 LinkNYC kiosks, finding that only one of them served an expected quantity of ads. My survey yesterday of one arbitrarily chosen LinkNYC screen proves, once again, that these kiosks, which depend entirely on advertising revenue, are not showing a whole lot of ads.
My Near-Foray Into Digital Vigilantism
An overheard recitation of one woman's phone number inspired a brief attempt at letting her know she left a lot more up for grabs than just that.
One More Camera Activated on LinkNYC Kiosks, and Other LinkNYC Notes
I sifted through some data in an attempt to determine how LinkNYC kiosks fared during Manhattan's West Side blackout of July. Also, video calling is now available for the deaf and hard of hearing, I counted how many ads versus filler content rotated through randomly chosen kiosks, and other LinkNYC notes and observations.
Howler Blasting Through a LinkNYC Loudspeaker
The title says it all. I had LinkNYC machines all over New York blasting this ghastly noise, typically only heard through landline telephones.
Will the LinkNYC Rollout Ever Resume its Rapid Pace?
The formerly breakneck pace of new LinkNYC installations and activations is today characterized by empty advertising-only payphone enclosures, payphones removed with no replacement, and sidewalks littered with hunks of rotten plywood where promised LinkNYC kiosks have yet to appear.
Payphones vs. LinkNYC: The N11s Compared.
Access to 211, a community outreach service provided by the United Way, has been hijacked on a significant quantity of CityBridge payphones. Calls to 211 now connect to services promising gift vouchers and free vacations in exchange for taking a survey.
No Breakout on LinkNYC for You
It's still possible to get at Breakout or Doom through LinkNYC. Too bad you can't actually play the games.
LinkNYC’s Loudspeakerphone: A Failure With Precedent
LinkNYC's loudspeaker interface erases some of the most common maintenance headaches of the traditional payphones. But at what cost?
Was the “Immigrant Lady Liberty” #ArtOnLink Screen Really Controversial?
Much of the enmity directed at a specific #ArtOnLink illusrtation was patently Islamophobic. But I found some questions provocative.
Was This LinkNYC Machine Trying To Tell Me Something?
Clicking noises dribbling from a LinkNYC kiosks had me asking if someone besides me had found a way to connect the device's loudspeaker to a sound source.
Someone Kissed This LinkNYC Tablet Screen
It's enough to make you laugh, but then it's enough to make you go hmmmm.
A Couple of New Tweaks for LinkNYC’s Tablets
Not a lot of new features or content have appeared on LinkNYC this year, minus the advertising screens, of course. But I recently discovered that limited access to detailed weather forecasts are available on the tablet, and that a couple of small tweaks appeared in the screensaver.
Reflections in a Non-Working LinkNYC Kiosk
I don't see as many non-working LinkNYC tablet screens as I used to. But when I do I will, if time permits, let my camera's burst mode do its thing and capture hundreds of images, from which I pick a few winners.
Living on the Links
Summer weather has finally arrived in New York, bringing LinkNYC's loiterers back to the curb in what appear to be ever-increasing numbers.
LinkNYC’s Most Unicorn-Like Content: The Time of Day
I've only been able to capture it twice, having seen it 5 or 6 times. Did you know that LinkNYC's arsenal of useful content includes the time of day?