Image1-733464.jpg 1,024×683 pixels. Shunnology – the blog » Others. Florentjin Hofman Giant Plushies I would be joyously happy to have these Giant Plushies by Florentjin Hofman lying about my home!
Imagine: you open the door and and to unwind, you could just do a short sprint (high jump style) and *plonk* – you are engulfed in plush, cushiony goodness… Anyway, these plushies belong to an art project entitled Dushi, where in exaggerating the scale of these cuddly childrens’ toys, he transcends them into sculptural elements . Other works of interests also include the quirky Canard De Bain (Rubber duck) or the very clever Spiegelwand (Mirror wall) - a pannel of mirrors are inserted into a forest to shield the ramblers of the industrial view lying behind it. All in all, pretty whimsical & fun works. Florentjin Hofman My choice of meat in Gozo… Cool Japan: Fancy underground robot bike parking in Tokyo. If you think of a city full of bikes, your first though might be Amsterdam (which is packed with the two-wheelers, believe me) or a city in China.
But Tokyo has its own great number of bike riders. In fact, 90 percent of Tokyo commuters use rail, and 30 percent of these also rely on a bicycle to reach their final destination. That's a lot of bikes, and finding a place to park all of them is starting to become a problem. One safe, eco-friendly and robotic solution has been found with a system of automated kiosks that park the bikes in an underground rotating storage wheel (check out the additional picture and video after the jump to see what we mean).
The system uses membership cards that cost ¥2600 (about $29 or €21) a month. I-Go eBike sharing concept. September 23, 2011 | by wordlesstech team i-Go is an electric bike concept loaded with futuristic rider-friendly features such as regenerative wireless brakes, internal gears, smartphone charging ability, mobile app and GPS all integrated into a foldable design.
Amazing Bike Share Transporting System. The Zurich based architect and designer Rafael Schmidt submitted a new Bike Sharing System to a competition organized within last year’s International Climate Conference in Copenhagen.
Quite different from a transporting system, RAFAA’s new design will contribute not only to the stocks and flows of people, but also to its user and to the city itself. The bike is equipped with a supporting electric motor and a 26V lithium battery to make it suitable for short and long distances up to 15km. 545482_460172424024887_521231348_n.jpg 400×300 pixels. Bicycle-sharing system incorporates app and GPS. Sobi is a new bicycle-sharing system, that uses GPS and a mobile phone app for locating and reserving bicycles (Photo: sobi) Image Gallery (4 images) Some readers may be familiar with the car2go car-sharing system, which is now in use in several cities around the world.
Users locate the closest available car via the internet or a telephone call, go to it, unlock it with a chip card, enter their PIN on its keypad, then drive it wherever they want (within its range). When done, they just leave it at the closest designated car2go parking spot, where the next user will pick it up. It's a pretty neat idea, so if it works for cars, why not bicycles? New York City urban planner Ryan Rzepecki founded sobi, inspired by bike sharing programs he saw in other cities.
The sobi bikes, by contrast, would require no home base. Brain Pickings. 02 JUNE, 2008By: Maria Popova What third world children have to do with NYC commuting and why RFID beats honor systems every time.
Remember when the One Laptop Per Child program first made waves and everyone thought a $100 laptop for the third world was anywhere from laughable to plain undoable? Smart City Bike by Yo-Hwan Kim. Smarter Ride The Smart City Cycle takes into consideration that you may have to carry some luggage with you when you head out.
It could be as simple as groceries or toys for your children. The rear wheel of the cycle hosts extendable compartments that can hold your goodies for you. If required, then the storage extension can be completely removed as well. Regular Short-Distance Journeys. Initiatives to Drive Usage. Issues - The Weather. Need for Accessories? Issues: Full Docking Stations.
Issues: Empty Docking Stations at Departure. Are-the-wheels-coming-off-the-boris-bike-commute-8479654. At this time there are plenty of bikes to take, and the suits unlock them with their membership keys, pedal off and flow over Waterloo Bridge.
Wait half an hour, though, and there is a problem. By 8am there are only a few bikes left, and 10 minutes later the super-dock is completely empty. Oliver O’Brien, a researcher at UCL who maps usage of the scheme on his website, says the Waterloo bikes are often all gone by 7.45am. This is not unusual — unpublished City Hall figures obtained by the London Liberal Democrats show that in May last year an astonishing 381 stations were entirely empty for more than an hour each day on average, and that 83 stations were empty for six hours or more each day — rendering them futile for long periods. As the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme is extended south and west, with councils stumping up £2 million to have the bikes, the Standard has obtained figures under the Freedom of Information Act that cast serious doubt on the whole system’s performance. Some Boris Bike problems.
Generally speaking, I do not judge a company by the fact that something has gone wrong.
That is unfair as no matter how much you spend/invest/whatever, things will still go wrong at times. It is inevitable. What I will do though, is judge a company very seriously on how they deal with the problem. Some companies have procedures in place to deal with problems, to communicate with customers and provide feedback. These are good. Then there is Serco – the people managing the customer care for the Boris Bikes/Barclays Cycle Hire scheme. London's cycle-hire scheme: Why a Boris Bike can be an existential hell. Boris bikes: Lost keys and a slack response. Barclays Cycle Hire – What Are The Users’ Verdicts? As we’re now nine months into the Mayor’s flagship cycle hire scheme, it’s worth having a look at what the users are saying – after all, the software bugs and unresolved operational issues should’ve been ironed out by now, right?
Wrong. First, the verdict of Evening Standard journalist, Ross Lydall. Having received an erroneous bill for £644, Ross spent half an hour on Friday last week trying to find a dock for his hire bike. Cristiano on Tech/Life » A year of using the Boris bike. Aug 12 So it’s been about a year that I’ve been using the Boris bike (the Barclay’s bike hire scheme in London). Has it really been a year?