When I spotted this LinkNYC phone app dialing numbers on its own I thought it might have had something to do with CityBridge’s alleged ability to monitor these machines’ functional status. Maybe this was some kind of automated test where the kiosk phoned home. Or maybe these numbers were being dialed manually by somebody at the Smart City cloister at Hudson Yards.

Something is wack with this LinkNYC machine. It is dialing numbers on its own. You're supposed to be able to see the numbers by tapping the eyeball icon top left. That didn't work. Wonder who or what this machine is trying to call? pic.twitter.com/U4Nhdiajyn

— Payphone Project (@projectpayphone) April 30, 2019

Nothing doing. It’s just another bugged out Smart City machine. But spotting this one gave me yet another chance to check if a non-working device I encountered on the sidewalk appeared in CityBridge’s LinkNYC Kiosk Status dataset. CityBridge claims this data delivers hourly snapshots of what features work and which ones do not on every one of the 1785 activated LinkNYC machines.

Sorry to say, but this machine did not appear in the report, nor did another nearby kiosk which has sported a non-working tablet screen since Saturday. That kiosk’s tablet had also been offline for a full week earlier this month, all the while never appearing in the Kiosk Status dataset. Over the weekend I encountered 10 kiosks in Manhattan with non-working tablet screens. Not one of those machines appeared in the LinkNYC Kiosk Status dataset, while other tablets reported as non-working were, in fact, working.

I have kept track of this dataset for months now, and could count on one hand the number of times I found that the location of a non-working kiosk appeared in the report. I don’t know why that information is generated or what methodology lies behind it, but it does not do much to improve my estimation of what kind of quality product LinkNYC is.

I would also add that when a kiosk’s tablet screen does not work it is almost always the case that the phone calling feature does not work either. But I don’t think I have ever seen it reported that when a tablet is reported down its phone calling function is as well.

The data feeds my LinkNYC By The Numbers pages, which I put together under the existential duress of knowing I was purveying bad information, and even appearing to endorse it by doing so. Nevertheless, like I said, I check those pages whenever I spot a non-working tablet screen, just for the possibility that over time the report will improve in quality. But I’m not holding my breath.