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Montreal Parking Meters Run Linux
jbecherv writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, new-fangled Montreal parking meters run embedded Linux (Google Cache). The City of Montreal is planning to roll out 500 to 800 wireless, solar-powered parking payment stations based on embedded Linux. There is even a
device profile
(Google Cache) that show some details about the meters... These meters run kernel 2.4.19 on a 206MHz StrongARM SA-1110. Each system has 64MB of RAM, boots from a CF device, and is networked wirelessly via GPRS."
But that seems like a lot of RAM. Is it?
I can't recall where it was, but some other city tried using solar powered parking meters. They never worked due to insufficient light.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Or does a 206 MHz processor with 64 MB of ram seem like DRASTIC OVERKILL for a parking meter?
Seriously, what's the deal?
Poor parking meters now they'll be the target of drunk geeks as well as drunk frat boys.
"If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit." - Mitch Hedberg
I didnt RTFA, but what happens when someone tapes over the solar cells and you park there, is it free?
Lemme get this straight..
Solar powered, in MONTREAL???
Guess the StrongARM takes less power than I thought...
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Software should be free as in Free Parking.
My metamoderation cancels your moderation
Here's some french for you: Fuck you, buddy!
Centralized control enables city officials to adjust rates on the fly, for example raising the rates during sporting events, concerts, or other times of high parking demand.
as if meters aren't expensive enough... We really needed someone to come up w/the bright idea to allow dynamic changes to parking meters.
The last parking meter I parked at was 25 cents for 10 minutes. That's just nuts. This will just enable them to have meters that take credit cards forcing even higher rates.
Want a way to stop people from coming downtown? Raise the rates on the meters even higher.
How many cars do these things keep track of at once? Are Canadians really that bad at keeping track of how long they've parked?
Before people broke meters so they wont have to pay, now their gonna break 'em and take 'em home so they can use them!
i'm not saying embedded windows is safer, i'm just wondering if someone could easily hack this system, it would be interesting if someone got free parking in the city
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow, armored linux boxes with CF, AND solar power! So, how long before some enterprising "recycler" start ripping them off of sidewalks and putting them up on eBay? :)
Why does every citizen of Montreal need three of these things?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! Hours of parking time could be finished in minutes!
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Cale Systems and 8D Technologies deliver one of the world's most advanced parking systems - wireless electronic payment and management - to be deployed in a large North-American city
So what is going to happen when someone comes along with a thick black Sharpie Permanent Marker and mark the solar panel all black?
...but does it run Windows?
You'll know they switched when you come to Montreal and the streets are bathed in an eerie blue light.
...do parking meters _reall_ need to run Linux? What was wrong with the convential variety?
Hey froggie, quiet down eh
Parking meters are simple and reliable. Nothing like taking something that just works and replacing it with something else that is infinitely more complex, break-prone and expensive. Besides which, people will never use these things successfully. "Put coin in slot next to car" is as smart as people are. Seriously. People are going to pay for the wrong parking spots, pay too much money, and so on. Bad idea.
I wonder how many sunny days and how many actual sunlight hours those park meters get in Montreal. Specially in winter. How big are the panels? Mars probe technology is being deployed?
Detroit is rolling out high tech ones too
Evolution or ID?
so like... how long till theres an exploits to get free parking?
Then why the fuck are you on here?
The link to the story: http://www.narvakitchens.com/linux.pdf and a link to the device profile: http://www.narvakitchens.com/profile.pdf :)
it would be cool if you could pay for your car online if a meeting runs long or something. other than that, this seems like more of a waste of money and raises the risk of them getting stolen. stealing the old fashioned ones is cool, but stealing a bunch of portable solar computers would be bad-ass!
I would have modded you up. Maybe that's why I never get mod points. :)
parking meter, whats next solar powered cars?
Reading the blurb, did anyone else think of the intro scene in Cool Hand Luke?
:)
Harvesting for a cluster
668.5
few hunderds of spare 200 MHz ? I wonder if their administrator will resist the tempation of installing disturbed computing client (like seti@home, or distcc >;-)
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
I dunno.. that was pretty goddamned funny.
imagine one which has a plan of the entire parking lot (one floor only if multistorey) and you push your spot to pay. saves the (minor) hassle (in UK) for those where you get a sticker and have to take it back to your car and put it in the dash.
combined with a CCTV (improved security) it also means that if you run out of money license plate read so a fine can be charged (payable upon return or higher fine if later through post).
reading plates also allows for tracking of stolen vehicles.
I give you... the parking meter that saves the world!
(coming up... privacy fundamentalists who shriek in horror and demand to be anonymous at all times no matter what)
A Beowulf cluster of parking meters imagines YOU!!!
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
It sounds about like an iPAQ 3600. 32MB of flash, and 32 of Ram - 64 MB.
Sounds about right, and based on my limited past experience with Familiar http://www.handhelds.org you are going to need that ram.
So yeah to answer someone elses question you could no doubt run Wince on this thing.
I have a parking meeter "obtained" from the storage room of my local municipality about 20 years ago. They had been out of service for 10 years, and installed 10 before that. Old enough that you could buy 8 minuites for a penny, anyway. Now, when I was playing with it as a kid- it still worked. Heavy as hell, was death on toes, but it still worked. In 40 years, where will these be? How will they be safely disposed of?
Just like touch screen voting, this seems like a "because we can" application of technology. Sometimes there's no reason to replace what works. The old steel parking meters are quite literally bulletproof. I simply cant imagine any reason that makes networked meters any better.
Of course, when I moved to DC I sold my car and bought a bus pass, so what do I know?
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Are users being given the option of download the source code?
As we say in French, get bent! ..!..
How soon before they get hacked and become the largest distrubuted WiFi Quake server?
I hate to generalize, but at least Quebecers aren't inbred, whacked out hicks who have sex with animals.
I remember way back in the day, a full set of support for PDA hardware and software was available. Digital was licensing the technology in order to develop the StrongARM (1995/6 for the 200Mhz version IIRC - got a Palm on my desk that's powered by one of those). ARM didn't have quite the same profile in embedded systems markets in those days, but they were certainly aware of the potential of their CPU: the ARM6 was the first CPU they specifically designed for embedded applications.
Interesting that it's now powering digital parking meters - running Linux no less!
Pssst: it's an Anti-Slash crapflood. Pay it no mind and let the 0tt0-m0dz deal with it.
"Centralized control enables city officials to adjust rates on the fly, for example raising the rates during sporting events, concerts, or other times of high parking demand."
So, they are wireless and running Linux. We need some geek sporting fans to hack it and lower the price during sporting events to say $0.00.
Evolution or ID?
Isn't this just a bit much for a parking meter? The more simple a solution, usually the better. There would be a reduction in moving parts with using the new devices, but I don't think that and the network idea are enough to justify this. The fact is the more complex things are made, the better chance of something going wrong. Even in the article they mention having to fix a bug. What will happen when another bug starts shorting people ticket time and they have to deal with a mob of angry car owners? Solar power is good and all, but has it ever been used successfully on such a project? It looks like politics took control and pushed special interests ahead of common sense. At least they're not running Windows PM special ultra extreme .NET software.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
The Device Profile states, "The stations run a Linux distribution that 8D developed in-house." Where is the source code? I searched:
8D
http://www.8d.com/
But couldn't find anything. How can we efficiently build on 8D's work to build a better, competitive parking meter without the code?
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Excerpt from SCO's reactionary press release: "Anyone who parks at one of these meters is in effect using Linux, and therefore owes SCO $699 + 25 cents per half hour."
-Darl
Somebody e-mail me the free parking exploit
At least they can justify the high cost of tickets now...
Normally any conversation taking place about technical advancements of parking meters is usually left to the pub with the intoxicated...
But alas here I am... sober.
What I wonder is, being able to use your cell phone to pay for your parking fare on such a possible UBER METER, would it also SMS or phone you to nag you that your time is almost up and it's time to "feed" the meter?
Anyone that remembers pay toilets is surely dieing for info on state-of-the-art bleeding edge toilet tech. Anyone have any info on computerized pay toilets?
I can understand a reason for some of the upgrades. Like how many people keep change on them anymore. It's all plastic. I always have the hardest time when that happens cause all I ever have is a lot of pennies on me.
Evolution or ID?
You had a 40 year old parking meter that would let you add more time to it from any other parking meter in the city (rather than having to run across the block/campus/city to that particular parking meter)? And the city could dynamically adjust the rates for a given area of the city in order to curtail congestion patterns??
That's incredible!
it's a zaurus with a coin slot? yes it plays ogg files. how else would it make the "nyuk nyuk" sound everytime someone got a parking ticket?
well, the city of montreal could generate revenue for the project by selling cpu time on a very large parallel processing machine.
and as always, cyclist park for free.
Sounds like these meters will automatically tell the parking officer when your time is up. They could even combine them with pavement sensors and photo recognition (or RFID!) in the future to automatically ticket you.
Boston's used to it. It happens there every year come October.
Casual Games/Downloads
They should deploy them around this place. There will be a lot of cars around here for weeks to come so they can charge a premium.
Forget about solar power...they should be working a meter that runs off of exhaust fumes and bum urine for Boston.
I'm sure the boys at MIT are working on it right now...
Let's go warparking!
So they're going to have to arrest people who block the solar panels, right?
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Oh, lemmie guess... Seattle.
Close.... Redmond. They don't seem to have much "light" there either.
Yes, but you have to insert some money....
Show me this cant be done with a Commodore 64. Seriously.
WTF.
Oh I see, as soon as the story's about Linux we provide google caches because we don't want to /. the site that promotes our beloved OS into submission?
/. takes no prisoners, what's happening?!?
PPFTTT
I've got a Zaurus, if I developed a C app for it and bundled it in an ipk, would it work on this parking meter? It's running the same speed StrongARM 1100 processor and it uses the ipkg format, and it's running a 2.4.* kernel...I can't think why it wouldn't
:o)
Just curious is all
I would like them to come up with a device (or a GPS plugin or whatever) which would show me the empty parking spots available in a radius around my current location.
I would think most people who work/commute downtown and don't want to pay monthly parking fees would be willing to shell out big bucks for such a feature.
Certainly beats crawling around the roadside for hours trying to find a parking spot.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
They don't want you paying the meter like you're supposed to. If you do, they only get 25 cents per 15 minutes or whatever (which would be a maximum of, what $24 per day? Even if they are in force 24 hours, which few are?). If you fail to pay, and the meter-maid spots it, they get $25 (or similar). They get more (possibly far more) for one ticket than for a whole day of good little parkers.
This is why there's often a short maximum total parking time limit -- gotta have turnover. The more people park, the more tickets have a chance of getting written.
This is also why you see news stories every now and then about people who go around feeding other people's meters getting arrested or otherwise harrased. These Helpy Helpertons cut down on revenue.
Municipalities don't want obedience, they want money. The parking-meter scam is but one method.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
You and your friends can park for free!*
*Certain conditions apply, results vary on battery power, may not be claimed in the United States of America.
if you need change to use a phone, or something
In greater Vancouver, we have dodgey characters that drive around with hacksaws, decapitating the meters for the change inside. A thousand dollar parking meter gets destroyed for $40 in change.
In Montreal, it will be geeks with hacksaws. Rather than being tossed into a lake, the parking meters will show up in a home-built robot.
well arn't we a stupid person. Please list these "serveral independant reasearch companies", and also check into who funded this reseach...i bet my last dollor that M$ name is all over the cheques. Just because a company says there a "independant research company" doesn't mean that it's so. Also, what hardware was this tested on? for all we know, the windows boxes could have been the lastest and crazyest tech out there, while the linux boxes could have been running on some pile of shit 486. Also, do you even know what the fuck the definition of a hacker is? here's a stupidity link for you: Here Besides, how do we know that your even telling the truth about you certs? for all we know you could be some kind of 12 year old kid that read somthing somwhere and wants to sounds smart. So next time that you go posting shit like this, post some links to back yourself up. PS: I know several people that barly made it out of highschool that in my opinion (in the professional world) could run circles around you. nuff said.
-Pizentios
where do you think it holds all the quarters?
.
There was an article in the Seattle PI today about Seattle's plans to do this exact same change:
The article also talks about how Portland made the same switchover, and the successes they had:
Neil
Seems to me they had parking metres before the days of Linux and IC's. Why the hell would you need an operating system on a parking meter. Sounds like a big waste of money to me. I think the mechanical ones would be a lot easier to maintain. People just have to make everything so damn complicated nowadays.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Just try getting those things to play sound. Even parking meters that ran Windows 95 could find the sound card with no problem.
From the article:
What's inside the box?
8D's "ECO" wireless POS device
Integrating its POS technology with the existing device proved to be one of the challenges for 8D. According to CTO Jean-Sébastien Bettez, "We are a software company. We had to acquire expertise in this new hardware environment, to work with the buttons on the keypad and the card reader. We had to make it work the same as before, so users find no difference from the old one."
lol, the equipment is a POS, of course it was a challenge for them get it to work
I love this quote:
...Linux people are very friendly people."
I nearly shot beer out of my nose when I read this. I want to know who he's been talking to, so I can get Linux actually working on my machines!
Ok, now back to our normally law-abiding citizen...
Any generalization is a stupid one.
Good thing they cleared up what they ment by POS. With all the nit wit things I see I immediately thought it stood for something else...
Why don't they use Wi-Fi. GPRS costs money, which means that the telecom operators will have their finger in the pie too. This will make parking even more expensive...
in soviet russia the street crashes you!
England. Aparently, the headline in The Mirror was "Darking Meters" :)
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
One can only presume that the use of a wireless network will allow users to swipe their bank card or Visa and then run off to do their thing. When they return and drive away the meter will notice the car is gone and their bill will be automatically paid. There will be no more leaving the stall with 40 minutes left on the meter because you didn't know how long you'd be! Likewise, you won't pay for 45 minutes and come back 47 minutes later only to find a ticket under your wiper.
Of course, you can bet that if these meters rely on wireless communication they're going to wind up being hacked by drunken geeks on a regular basis. Some might be dumb enough to hack a meter they personally park at. Some who are slightly smarter will infect the system with a virus that gives everyone free parking. However, sooner or later someone is going to hack the meter network to charge $20,000 per minute, and someone is going to have a heart attack when they get back from watching a two hour movie and see what their bank is about to be charged the moment they drive away!
Hey! Quit talking about France that way.
Ribbit!!!
City auctions event parking spaces on ebay.
And, better yet, there's no warning!
you mean like near the sex shops?
You're actually on the team? Koivu is that you? Or are you just a stupid ass fan? In that case, you didn't do shit.
i could run doom, quake, mechwarrior 2 etc on that thing... wow... maybe someone should steal some for clustering ;)
be kinda cool to throw spare cycles from such things into a supercomputer... they'd have spare ram, cycles, and wireless, right? the streets themselves could help with some cumputations, though i imagine the overhead of the mesh network would kill its effectiveness, it's still kinda cool to think about how (in the future) a parking meter could help find a cure for cancer or whatever though...
does it run...
Oh crap, it does
while true ; do echo this is my sig; done
One nice thing about these in other cities is you don't clutter the sidewalk with a meter every car length. You park your car, walk 1/4 to 1/2 a block, pay the machine and get a ticket to stick on your car. That's how I've seen it done in other cities anyway. In cities with narrow sidewalks & streets, getting rid of all those posts makes a noticable difference both in appearance and usability/capacity of the sidewalks.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
A Montreal winter....
What good is the hack if there isn't a space to be found? ;)
There's a company called Verrus that lets you call a phone number on parking meters and enter how many hours you're going to park for. Touch tone stuff. Low tech. Freaking works great though. Cool thing is... you can call back in to extend your time remotely.
It doesn't actually talk to the meter at all, so basically these are just stickers you can paste anywhere to charge for parking. Ahahah, a landlords dream! The meter maids (or meter dudes) walk around with their own phones (WAP? J2ME?) to check that you're paid. Anyways, seems to me this has to be cheaper than some freaking rocket science parking meter that's more complicated, vandal-prone, buggy, etc. One PDA patrols a helluvalotta parking spaces.
I've actually used this thing in Seattle and Vancouver. They had a WAP service and it was alright, but I ended up using the touchtones. My experience the first time was actually pretty painful. You have to enter your Visa # once and your license plate(s), but then it uses Caller ID and a PIN for when you call back in the future.
Keep your WiFi/WAP/Bluetooth/RFID. Gimme touch tones!
Solar powered is great, but what happens when those Montreal winters come blasting?
Most batteries don't fare well as the temperature plummets towards -40, either.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
All your parking-space are belong to us.
http://www.skunkware.tv/linuxstatement.htm
Woops, you misspelled "Alberta" there, billy bob.
That's a MINOR benefit. How about all the other stuff that sells the management on deploying this technology like:
- expired meters signal the agent to stop by and ticket. No more walking around checking every meter.... Super efficient way to raise revenues
- weekly/monthly stats of spaces highlight the areas of highest overtime parking incidence. Again, super efficient means of tagging and collecting revenue.
- stats reveal where meter feeding is commonplace, actual park time, and help set time limits based on actual usage. Again, super efficient means to more revenue.
- stats indicate effectiveness of foot agents in monitoring meter use and citing violators.
- "Average Time past exiration before ticketed" and "number of overtime cars who got away before being ticketed" come to mind as new performance metrics for metermaids of the 21st century.
and on and on and on..... Remember people, it's all about money.
But it isn't
That powerful little bastard is the pattern for the immediate future. As one poster mentioned, you probably can't even buy less than 64 Mb at a time, or even a slower cpu and save any significant amount of money. Go to the store and find a 32 Mb flash RAM card. The 64 Mb ones will be off the market by this time next year.
Ladies and gentlemen, some time ago, we passed an important milestone and didn't pay it much attention. Very powerful computers are so cheap today, that there is now no point in using anything less powerful in even the most banal appliances. Parking meters are now Cray-class UNIX boxes. Deal with it.
And this is only the beginning.
The previous posts are right on the money as far as the potential usefulness, and cost savings of these meters.
/. hacker community.
1 . I could see it as very useful especially if they program these up to send SMS messages to your cell phone when time is about to expire and allow you to recharge the meters via your cell phone.
2. Turn them into potential advertising machines. The LCD screens can run mini commercials on a small screen and generate more money for the city. I can also see this as a perk, you get free parking for watching the ads and responding to the questions just to ensure you're really watching the ads.
3. Have them accept smart cards or credit cards only. This would eliminate the need to hire people to manually go to each meter and collect money out of them.
4. Set them up to take a picture of your plates when your meter runs out they could just send you a parking ticket to the address of the vehicle's owner. This could save money by eliminating parking enforcement officers and making easy money for all those expired meters that enforcement officers never catch.
The cool possibilities are endless. I just hope that they figure out a way to keep them secure from people like me and the rest of the
Cool, I could use some more cards for my (camera|PDA|Zaurus)
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If they are what I think they are, here is how they work:
It's not every single meter that is like that. It's a kiosk on a small block where you go buy parking time. Then you put the ticket in your car.
The trick is that in theory, you buy more time than you need. But since you leave with the ticket, the next guy has no idea how much time is left. So the city gets to charge twice (or more) for a certain period of parking time.
Maybe they have some other reason to use so much power for such a simple task. For example, would it be that far of a stretch to add a breath test to these? Downtown bar areas could be fitted with a breath test easily, baring any sanitation issues. Other examples could be cameras. Not that "big brother" is going to be watching you, but what if your plate number is photographed when you park. Any warrents, unpaid tickets, etc could be linked up and they'd know where to find you. I'm sure I'm missing several other things, but there could be legitimate concerns that these devices could be used for more than their intended purpose.
is GPRS open? For example could I get a radio server, set it on my roof and make cell phone calls through my home phone line?
Imagine everyone who has free wifi giving out free cellphone service using their vonage account.
Seriously, that'd be okay with me!
:P
*grin*
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
This bridge costs 6GBP (calling slashdot janitors, please fix the fucking HTML entities), each way. If you visit Skye, you need to pay nearly 12 pounds to cross, and cross back. If you are towing a caravan, you pay for the car and caravan separately, a total of 24GBP. Now, apparently this shouldn't affect tourism, Skye's main industry. But a 5GBP charge is supposed to stop people driving in the City of London? The arse has fallen right out of Skye's tourism-led economy in recent years, incidentally.
Did you know that Quebec is the only place in North America where an unpaid parking ticket will cause an arrest warrant to be issued?
Pretty ridiculous if you ask me..
Seems to me even an adaptive parking meter able to be reprogramed needs little more advanced technology than the average cheap digital assistant combo calculator (probably should cost as much but lets not go there). I'd figure that that all solid state design would be easily solare powered as it needs much less than the 64M of ram alone in that 200 MHz system.
"look two shinly dimes, ill trade you for that dull $20 bill"
yada yada i know if they didn't make any changes and then distribute it yada yada... but seriously, where is the source? This isn't like those people who post for no reason, I'm trying to figure out how to make my computer accept coins!
Make these parking meters with only a command line for input, no mice so Win people are excluded, no 'smart' touchscreen so housewifes are excluded, only a commandline, I think there would always be a parking place for me.
I am a Nigerian national who has approximately:
500 to 800 wireless, solar-powered PDA's based on embedded Linux. These PDAs run kernel 2.4.19 on a 206MHz StrongARM SA-1110. Each system has 64MB of RAM. (Display not included)
Saddly, they were imprisoned in metal cases by my dastardly cousin who sold them to the City of Montreal.
If you would send me $1100 for a sledge hammer and airplane ticket to free my property, I would gladly repay you with half of my stolen goods.
Please do not inform the authorities as they will most certainly move my property to another city.
Please e-mail me at scams-r-us@upyours.com
People have always been trying to damage or steal meters. But now we can steal them and run our webservers or whatever on them. This is great. So has anyone stolen one yet?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
In Winnipeg, we have these solar powered parking meters installed in some key locations. They work well, it simple prints out a ticket, like a parkade, and you put it in your dash, if you need to renew, just put the ticket in the machine and drop in more $$$.
With its cache.
*ba dum bum*
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Linus Torvalds needs to immediately drive to Montreal and get a parking ticket at one of these things while eating poutine or something. The circular irony of that is just too wonderful to pass up.
Hi,
I work for Precise Parklink, the provider for the Toronto Parking Authority and many municipalities in Ontario and Western Canada. Our machines are solely based on a EPROM with very little data stored. Why would anyone need 64MB? Our machines also operate on GPRS GSM 'and' Mobitex, solar power, wireless, etc. There's no kernel, no flash card, and works great. One thing that would really impress me is if these Linux machines could accept debit, and most of all, if someone is able to hack it. Also, storing credit card data on a compactflash card garentees the data always exists, which is a bad thing if someone were to tamper with the machine. With our machines, the transactions aren't stored on the EPROM, but instead on RAM. If the machine is turned off or reset, the cc data is lost and the parker is safe from someone stealing their credit card number. Bottom line, the more advanced technology gets for parking meters, the more susceptable to fraud, bugs, and security issues.
I like it. Slam "opensores" but put your comment under the GFDL.
I'll have you know that comments distributed under closed licenses:
This comment is licensed to you ("The READER"). You may read this comment one time free of charge, but for every read thereafter, you must remit to GreenEgg $.05 (US) for each read. This license is non-transferable. Void where prohibited, taxed, or restricted. You may not decompile, reverse-engineer, or redistribute this comment. You may quote portions of this comment without prior approval provided that: 1) you submit $1.25 (US) to GreenEgg, 2) This notice is included, in its entirety, following each portion quoted.
--- This
They're going to be doing next to nothing for most of the time they're deployed, so why not hack them to run SETI@home as a bacground process. They already have networking through GPRS, so there should be no trouble trading data with the SETI servers.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
and these will work in montreal winter?
For a parking meter, I don't see the need for a microprocessor at all, let alone an operating system. Why not just an ASIC? I don't know what kind of features the thing boasts, though.
Almost sounds good enough to steal....
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
find a slack ware user, and check out the blurb on distrowatch
of slackware:
Perhaps the best characteristic of this distribution I have heard is this: If you need help with your Linux box, find a Slackware user. A Slackware user is more likely to fix the problem than a user familiar with any other distribution.
"...and I am _not_ intoxicated... YET!" --John Wayne
Now, all you need to do is to get root access and never pay for parking again! I bet there would be a good buck in making a keychain which wirelessly adds time to your parking meter.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
serial peripheral interface, not serial *programming* interface... and why the hell does a parking meter need this much power... it better run seti or some shit to use those extra cycles
-Program the meters to randomly go "Joe Public, you are fined One Credit for violation of the pimp-diddy-diddy clause..." (Additional "Read-The-Article-And-Paid-Attention" Bonus: only do it whenever someone walks by...)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I for one welcome our new networked parking meter overlords.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Two words. War parking.
*blinking cursor*
I just got a new watch it runs on Linux but uses a Windows emulator to display the time. It only needs a 2.4 Ghz processor with 256 MB RAM to work! There's also a USB port on it so I can upload the actual time by hooking it up to a real computer and connecting to the internet then going to the watch manufacturer's website and searching for my model of watch and then clicking download then saving the time file (cur_time_MDL-573BD.upl) (it's only 5 MB!!) and opening the transfer program and then clicking transfer then waiting a couple of seconds then pressing a special button on the watch and then it is DONE! How's THAT for progress! It even calculates the time it takes for me to download the file and adjusts AUTOMATICALLY!!! I can even make it look like a real watch with the Microsoft Theme Pack (or even an LCD watch (Go to Themes > Old School > LCD)
The CPU would be pretty bored just running a parking meter. How about it running SETI@Home while the parking timer decrements? "And in other news, a Montreal parking meter located life in another galaxy today..."
metermaids ...
...think what parking meters are connected to, their purpose. Cars. they regulate cars. Now think what they are putting in cars. NeoConStar devices and various RFID tags and other big brother doo dads. Sometime in the future I am guessing these same devices will keep track of WHICH VEHICLE parked there and for how long, etc, and add further data to the governments big data gathering and surveillance systems. That's why the system seems more robust than it needs to be, they are planning for it to do "more" sometime soon.
I was wondering:
Do those meters charge the cards wirelessly?
If so, I hope they use decent cryptosystem that is hard to attack wirelessly.
Or do they log the transactions in RAM for subsequent offline batch processing?
Can someone steal this device and crack it to extract stored credit card numbers? If they store a lot of credit card numbers, it may become worth the risk to steal such a meter.
--
Just being paranoid...
This is old news to people living in large cities. Toronto already has these devices that take credit cards and print up your parking slip (rather than a small meter per spot).
It sounds like overkill but what happens is that the city saves money cuz it needs less parking enforcement employees. All you need with this device is one guy in a car to drive by and check the stats wirelessly on the one machine. The old way, you have to check each meter for every parking space.
WHY!?!?!
that's where the government spends tax payer's money. instead of fixing roads - which are full of pot holes, they spend it on new solar powered parking meters.
my blog
http://zem.squidly.org/bsod/ It seems all those things worked fine before Windows...
kernel 2.4? WHAT!? why does EVERYTHING need to run linux? why does it need an OS as such, and how long until people start stealing them to "hack"?
I don't know of a recent camera that uses CompactFlash. Heck, few cameras even use SmartMedia anymore... it's down to SD/MMC, xD, and MemoryStick.
"2. Turn them into potential advertising machines. The LCD screens can run mini commercials on a small screen and generate more money for the city. I can also see this as a perk, you get free parking for watching the ads and responding to the questions just to ensure you're really watching the ads."
This is one of those ideas that is great in theory but does not work in practice. One problem is that people who would rather spend time watching ads than pay for parking (or whatever) are not good targets for advertising. They tend to be light on money and heavy with time; advertisers want to reach people who are heavy with money and light on time.
This is why advertisers love things like ESPN and the Super Bowl and hate commercial skip.
When I started programming, I was lucky to have 64k or ram. You young whipper snapper.
Fight Spammers!
Where we co-locate our servers in Markham, ON, IBM has these same (look the same, anyway) parking meters. It's the IBM location at 245 Consumers Rd, if anybody else can maybe confirm that they're the same ones.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Can the people who earned nothing writing Linux, etc. afford to pay the parking meters on which their software now runs?
Linux developer: The software is free-as-in-beer, dammit, why isn't the parking free too?
Cop: What, are you retarded or something? Shut up and pay your ticket.
Linux developer: But I don't have any money! I spent all my time writing software for free!
Cop: Ask me if I care...
Linux developer: Do you care?
Cop: No.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
-ocelot wreak.
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So who are we helping?
I know I need a new computer when a parking meter has me out classed. Maybe it has a whopping 64 MB ram, but can it run lynx as effectivly as a P133 with some unknown Trident graphics card?
Thanks, Grandpa. Thanks for all the long, laggy memories on this computer.
SAILING MISHAP
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! Hours of parking time could be finished in minutes!
Is that why they have parallel parking as part of the driving test?
Intellectual Property
Intellectual: of the mind
Property: that over which one has control
... but can it run Li-- Oh. Nevermind.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Well that's something to be proud of...
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Montreal Govt. Official - "Strange, abooot two months after we deployed our new fangled parking meters, the amount of money collected suddenly dropped off. And what is Beowulf?"
OK, I didn't type with a French accent. Sorry.
I can see it now:
www.priceline.com/parkingmeters
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
This appears to be a kind of unit common in Toronto and now, I assume, Montreal. You put a certain amount of cash (or creditcard -hence the connectivity need) and it issues a ticket showing your time of expiration for the amount of time you bought that you put on your dashboard. Also, since these have remote management and reporting, the municipality can make very good parking control planning. Why put dumb hardware on a stick (parking meter) in front of each vehicle?
BYW, this is an Intel ARM processor
Regular meters cost about $800 each, if you buy them in typical municipal rollout quantities.
The article didn't price the Montreal meters, but it does point out that each meter covers 12 spaces and neglects to mention that it no doubt results in labor reduction (lost job in entry-level law enforcement?) Notice the use of the word "meter maid" which would have the feminists marching in the streets if you said that in the US.
Annual cost for patrolling 150 spaces is $80,000.
Annual revenue per 150 spaces (in Vancouver) is $140,000.
(All Canadian Dollars)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
64MB in a freaking parking meter? That's more than my PC you insensitive clod!!
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
That is the funniest signature I've ever seen here. Thanks for the belly ache.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Those stupid parking meters have already costed me more than the God damned SCO license. Imagine my surprise when I found out that parking fines are not covered by OSRM insurance. Thanks a lot, Linux.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Will SCO charge a percentage of all parking fees? Or all tickets issued? HOW WILL THEY PAY THE LICENSING FEES FOR ALL METERS?!
echo "fdisk /mbr" >> /mnt/windows/autoexec.bat
resigned
Here's why:
There's one meter per block, at each parking spot there's a sign with a number. A123 or A435, B342, etc. You read your number, go to ANY machine in Montreal, punch in that number and you can put money in your meter. Now this is where they got greedy. They got sick of people using leftover time from previous 'customers' so any time you add money to a specific spot it resets to 0.
So if there is 2 hours on the machine and I want to add an hour (you can only have a max of 3 hours) I will have to pay for the full 3 hours. Furthermore you can not see how much money is left on the meter except by looking at the ticket it prints.
So if you have class and need to add a bit of money to the meter so it'll last till the end of class you have to add the full amount since it will restart.
Now for the mischief. There's nothing stopping you from punching in someone else's number, adding 25 cents and reducing there time to 15 minutes! Essentially guaranteeing a ticket.
So if someone has 3 hours on there meter, and you come by and put in 25 cents it will go to 15 minutes. This can be handy to use against people you don't like or just random strangers with nice cars, etc. Anyways it seems like a big problem.
The only thing I was thinking is that maybe the machine will keep track of the OLD value as well as the new value to prevent this, but it's still screwing over people who want to add money to their own meter.
Actually, since this is Montreal, just pick up some of some snow and put it on top.
Now I can go steal a parking meter, rip the guts out, and build my own PDA! :)
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
In Soviet Russia, solar panels are mounted on Poles...err..*you*!
...when a parking meter is running a newer version.
It just occured to me that without the ability to display the ticket on your car, anyone with or without a vechile can buy all the parking space availability in the city and can resell these tickets for a higher price than the city. I think it would be best for a 'pay-and-display' method on your car dash.
At -25C, the backup battery efficiency is very low. The day is at its shortest during winter and the snow is likely to obstruct the panel's solar cells.
And, in the even it survives, will the electronics and circuitry keep working fine at these temperatures or are we likely to see the bill being increase by some amount due to an unreliable device?
Achille Talon
Hop!
Brilliant for an embedded device, no?
Why is this parent modded funny when it's not a joke, just very very very very sad.
Is there no "-10 pathetic"?
Why is this parent modded funny when it's not a joke, just very very very very sad.
It's a ha-ha-only-serious joke.
Are there any geeks in the area that are going to slap Tux stickers on them? What's everyone's opinion on that, vandalism or harmless?
At first I was going to comment on how much silly overkill this is for simply paying for parking, but then I got to thinking - if the information is collected and transmitted up-to-date to a central location, then that means they could create a web service that will show you on a map which parking spaces are full Right Now. That could be really useful. "Honey, we're about to drive downtown to go do foo, could you check online and see how far away we're going to have to park? If the spots are filling up already we'd better get going now..."
(Now, if you have an onboard computer with web connectivity in your car....)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
This is about the darker side of freedom. Freedom of speech means that the fascists, the religious nutters, the pro-lifers and so on are allowed to hold their rallies -- and that some idiot is allowed to post "Don't forget to pay your $699 licence fee, you cock smoking teabaggers" at the top of almost every Slashdot discussion. And Free software means that the bad guys also get to use it to control their homemade cruise missiles, their slaughterhouses, their injecting-radioactive-tobacco-into-genetically-mod ified-monkeys research labs ..... and now, just when we thought we had reached the very nadir of anti-social applications to which Linux could be applied, someone goes and runs their parking meters with it!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
This would possibly be exceptable except for all the things that weren't taken into account:
I think this is yet another case of technology being put in place without any thought to the social and user-interface issues. When are people gonna learn?
In Bristol, UK (where I live), the city council replaced all the parking meters with "pay and display" machines much like the ones detailed above (but obviously less powerful). To make sure tickets couldn't be tranferred (so the council could make more money), you have to key in your registration number. Despite the fact they attached bright luminous yellow stickers with 'ENTER REGISTRATION NUMBER BEFORE MONEY' in 48pt letters, every day I see people putting coins in, getting them rejected, and going 'the meter doesn't work'. And then getting towed away. :)
It's my understanding that kernel 2.6 has much better parking meter support.
I put the "wry" in "riot."
why are you reading this? i said [NT]!
..but you can still get cars that don't have all the tracking crap in them. It will be hard to keep your tires free of rfid tags though, they are going in all of them soon.
I think being concerned over the very real potential of living in a constantly tracked and surveilled society isn't tin foil hat paranoia, just observation and analysis. Given governments basic past track records, they embrace any technology that will expand their command and control functions. Seems a reasonable assumption that they will continue to do so. Also seems reasonable to note that this "we the people" deal has gotten lost, now "government" is not "of the people" but of "the career politicians, bureaucrats and people who profit from the energy/pharmco/military, etc industrial complex", something a president-eisenhower-warned the people of the US definetly *would* happen unless we stopped it-back in the 50's, and we didn't. The warning was in his farewell speech as he was leaving the presidency, and it's quite a good read.
I'll give his thoughts on the matter a scosh more credence here I think.
i belive putting linux on a parking meter is much like installing linux on a dead badger. but my question is where do you get a linux driver for the coin slot, i want one of those on my linux box
even a stopped clock gives the right time twice aday...
Since when do people name their devices with the TLA for "Piece of shit"?
The way to corrupt a youth is to teach him to hold in higher value them who think alike than those who think differently
This means, of course, that people lend other people their bridge tickets. To that end, mail me or message me, and I'll arrange to give you a shot of my tickets. If you're passing through Glasgow (fairly likely) you can just pick them up.
It's simple: economies of scale make complex electronics cheap.
hahah...I do use a Dvorak keyboard layout you insensitive clod!
Using mobile phone for parking sending SMS with car number for start/end - simple. It does work like this here in Estonia...
Portland replaced all of its downtown meter heads with one-per-block parking sticker kiosks a year or two ago.
Anyone know if they run Linux, or are the same brand as the Montreal ones?