How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018)

#21

Post by Schiendelman » Tue, Mar 08, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #15

loa_in_ wrote: post #13

I like the emoji idea. So simple and practical both idea and the system as well

If you already need an app on your phone to use the system... why not vibrate the phone? The user is likely holding in their hands to read something (or listening to music with it). I'm not looking at the display for an emoji...

As an app developer, you don’t get to choose what the user is willing to enable. For instance, there are only three use cases on my phone that can make it vibrate day to day.

Often, a cute interface idea can break a user out of their usual notification habits, which could be pretty important for something like catching a bus!

Re: How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018)

#22

Post by zimpenfish » Tue, Mar 08, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #14

mandis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were too early would be my guess. In my opinion, embedded in today's time is easy and robust. Your thoughts?

> They were too early would be my guess. There were rugged PC's available back then for automotive use (think cop cars and the like). To me it sounds like they did not spec the hardware properly or installed it improperly.

Yeah, there were two schools of thought - proper rugged industrial PCs or "whatever we can find cheap on $boxshifter.com". The latter cohort won (although not really because they were a constant nightmare of problems...)

Re: How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018)

#23

Post by zimpenfish » Tue, Mar 08, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

mandis wrote: post #11

zimpenfish wrote: post #3

I worked for a company (back in 2009/10) that was putting LED advertising boards on the sides of (IIRC) NYC buses with an embedded PC to control them and report back to base. They were plagued - CF cards falling out from vibration, dirt and dust, electrical noise, etc. Needless to say, it was not a success.

They were too early would be my guess. In my opinion, embedded in today's time is easy and robust. Your thoughts?

Definitely too early in some respects - the LED boards were huge and clunky, advertisers weren't really interested despite the advantages (for a London bus, apparently, it took ~2 days out of service to replace vinyl adverts which is why you frequently see them with 6m+ outdated adverts), some questionable decisions were made re: software, etc.