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My Beef with the NYC Taxicab Touchscreens

Started by Whitney Hess · 10 months ago

If you’ve ridden in a NYC taxicab in the past 6 months, you’ve likely noticed the touchscreen TV in the back seat. At first I thought this was a great innovation — GPS-powered maps to show the distance between me and my destination, real-time local news, res ... Continue reading »

6 comments

  • david cushman

    1 year ago

    I was in NYC briefly last month. I liked the touch screen sat nav. What blew me away is that I get sat nav as a passenger - and the driver doesn't?
    reply
  • Michael Leis

    1 year ago

    Cushman! We were just talking about the touchscreens, and I have to say they're a bit much. They seem much better in theory than in practice.

    First, concentrating on watching them makes me a little queasy. Second, who else touched this thing?
    reply
  • Marc Fein

    1 year ago

    I really like the ABC screens. I think they are designed well and have some trusted names for each respective content catergory. New, Weather, Sports, Business News and restaurant info is certainly something I would grab on my Blackberry, Newspaper, the Internet or Tv during the course of my day so why not pass the time in a ridiculously long cab ride getting better informed. They could improve some things but overall I think it's great and use it often. the other ones NBC and DDS are a mess and provide no useful information (or don't even work) whatsoever. So when you say they are all "pretty pittifully designed", I have to respectfully disagree. ABC/Verifone has done a nice job.
    reply
  • david cushman

    12 months ago

    Hi Michael! hadn't thought about that touchscreen superbug transfer mechanism. Perhaps a sanitiser courtesy wipe, like an airplane toilet, is in order?;D

    I like that I get to see where I am going. Would like the driver to be afforded the same luxury...
    reply
  • Arthur

    10 months ago

    Your article is dated July 8, but I wonder when the pictures were taken. Particularly the pictures of the DDS project, since I heard that they changed their user interface at the end of May, 2008.
    reply
  • whitney

    10 months ago

    Arthur, you're probably right. I did take these photos quite a while before I wrote the blog post. I, too, have noticed changes to the DDS screen lately, but not enough to actually change this evaluation ;)
    reply

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