Robotic Bins and Benches in Cambridge

OldBus writes "According to the BBC robotic bins and benches have been installed in Cambridge. According to the article, they 'move and chuckle' and 'sing when the sun comes out.'" From the article: "Mr Bogen hopes the cutting edge technology would help keep the bins and benches safe from theft. The Junction has a three year maintenance contract with Greyworld and plans to name all the bins and benches individually to make carrying out repairs easier."

Comments

Less likely theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more likely to steal a bin or bench that talks and makes 'rude noises'.

Re:Less likely theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. As I live nearby, I am going to find those later on today, and one or two may mysteriously disappear...

Re:Less likely theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mr Bogen hopes the cutting edge technology would help keep the bins and benches safe from theft."

Yeah, cause we all know theives steer away from cutting edge technology. New technology is like a new car. Once it drives off the lot it takes a big hit in resale value. Theives are wise and only steel old technology because its depreciation has stabilied.

"They are what's called "generative" so that over time they develop more and more personality. You'll find that one bench may be particularly attracted to a particular bin. They will chuckle and giggle sometimes or make rude noises."

I think it's great that we're encouraging public displays of affection between innatimate objects as long as it's not gay bin on bin or bench on bench action. Hopefully the maintainers can successfully get them to succcessfuly mate in this native environment so the project can spread and more people around the world can be delighted by their rude noises.

"Artistic and executive director of The Junction, Paul Bogen, said: "They're great because they're fun and art should be fun and it should be something people enjoy and not just stodgy and theoretical.""

I know I really hate the boring task of throwing away my trash while in public. I've been waiting for the day that someone would invent a moving trash can I'd have to chase around while it giggled and farted. Don't even get me started on taking a relaxing lunch break at a park, enjoying nature just wishing the bench would talk to me.

"The project cost £110,000 and was funded by the Arts Council and the National Lottery. "

The Arts Council and National Lottery have been overlooked for bigger civic projects for too long. This will teach the world not to overlook the genious lurkin within it's own governments. Hopefully they'll start taking a more prominent roles in other public works projects. Just imaging highway offramps in more beautiful shapes like tulips, famous faces, zebra stripes, or fat naked ladies. I'm personally tired of the old clover. Stairs that go up but wind up bringing you down and sideways. An elevator where you push 6 buttons and it randomly pics six floors (and a supplemental) to let you off at. It's not fun to press a buton and know that's where the elevator is going to stop and open it's doors to let you out. Where's the thrill? Where's the adventure? Where's the FUN?

Re:Less likely theft?

[TummyX]

Yes but when you try to steal the bench it screams and howls in terror.

Re:Less likely theft?

[Cougem]

I currently go to Cambridge Uni, Trinity college. The entire population here, practically, is student. In central Cambridge there are virtually no houses, and yet a massive collegiate university. Putting these here during the end of the exam season, when we're all incredibly drunk is NOT the best time or place to put expensive bins around.

I can smell numerous end of year scavenger hunts.

Re:Less likely theft?

[rsynnott]

Are you an inanimate object homophobe? Tut-tut.

Re:Less likely theft?

[jacksonj04]

Given students in Cambridge, it's more likely to find them with modified voice circuits and a kitchen plunger stuck to the top wandering around going "EXTERMINATE!" and "DESTROYYYY!"

Re:Less likely theft?

[nanoakron]

In a similar vein, why doesn't the national lottery fund a light rail public transport system for Bristol? That might actually be useful...

-Nano.

Hang about.

[King_of_Prussia]

Bins that sing and chuckle are going to be safer from theft? In what alternate universe does the article writer live in?

Re:Hang about.

[Televisor]

Well, I suppose in the sense that nobody will want to steal a bin that answers back...

Re:Hang about.

[StuffJustHappens]

You beat me to it!

it's one of those things that you can look at and within 1 microsecond say to yourself 'I give them a week before they're stolen, covered in graffiti or vandalised".

There's a fairly sleepy seaside town near me and the shopping area (a 1 minute walk from end to end) has just sprouted an all-stainless-steel 'information point' with a 17" LCD screen - I looked at it and within 1 microsecond.....

Re:Hang about.

[aCapitalist]

The people that are already predisposed to stealing benches and bins would consider these things friends they can talk to at home....or in an abandoned building.

Re:Hang about.

[aerthling]

I'm guessing they're counting on the annoyance factor of the bins to keep them safe. After all, would you really want a bin that kept chuckling creepily and trying to snuggle up to you?

Re:Hang about.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Yeah, I remember when they tried out that "yellow bicycle" concept in Austin. It worked great in Europe, evidently. However, Europe doesn't have Mexicans. Within a few weeks, most of the yellow bikes were nowhere to be found.

Re:Hang about.

[hey!]

Bins that sing and chuckle are going to be safer from theft? In what alternate universe does the article writer live in?

Well, maybe they sing like my mom used to when she made dinner for her eight offspring (which believe me was a major production). It wasn't so much that she was off key (she was), but never sang an entire song. Oh, no. She'd just sing a snatch of the best bit, maybe just one line, over and over and over. And she used to chuckle -- at her own bad jokes and wisecracks.

Come to think of it, she used to nag us to tidy up too...

So speaking from personal experience, this is not going to make most people want to steal these things, although it may do quite a bit to combat loitering.

Re:Hang about.

[Saeger]

So there's fewer desperate people in Europe stealing bikes, eh? Guess Austin needs more socialism first.

Re:Hang about.

[Saeger]

Bins that sing and chuckle are going to be safer from theft?

Sure, when the bot's inertial and GPS sensors detect that it's being abused, it'll switch to shrieking car-alarm mode: "Bot-beater! Bot-napper! Help! *KLAXXON* I have your picture! I have 1000volts! Help!"

Re:Hang about.

[tallniel]

Bins that sing and chuckle are going to be safer from theft? In what alternate universe does the article writer live in?

For that matter, what kind of dirty skank steals bins anyway? Not got enough rubbish of their own? Bloody students.

Re:Hang about.

[Anonymous Coward]

My mommy is exactly like a high-tech garbage can

Wow. Just wow.

Re:Hang about.

[jurt1235]

Wonderland (like in "Alice in...")

Re:Hang about.

[drsquare]

I'd have thought the same reason people steal cars: they can be gutted for the parts. All those electronics can probably fetch a nice sum for some broke student, and when you're carrying a bin around no-one suspects you of being a thief. You could probably return the bin afterwards as well so no-one would notice it was missing.

Re:Hang about.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cambridge. It's not the real world.

Re:Hang about.

[badfish99]

But this is on the "real world" side of Reality Checkpoint (a lamppost in the middle of Parkers Piece).

Re:Hang about.

[rsynnott]

Did it work great? This was the one in Cambridge, right? I seem to remember hearing it was an expensive disaster...

Re:Hang about.

[Anonymous Coward]

They were green bikes in Cambridge (city of the talking bins) and lasted about 3 days.

Re:Hang about.

[jacksonj04]

You're carrying around a bin which is probably giggling, people are going to want to stroke it and see what happens.

Re:Hang about.

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

I remember that too, its a good concept, but just doesn't work with our society. While driving around here in Austin recently I remembered seeing someone on a yellow bike and wondering if it was public or if they were just unlucky enough to own a yellow bike. What happened if you owned a yellow bike when they introduced that program? Or if a dick of a friend painted your bike yellow as a prank?

Re:Hang about.

[Anonymous Coward]

it'll switch to shrieking car-alarm mode: "Bot-beater! Bot-napper! Help! *KLAXXON* I have your picture! I have 1000volts! Help!"

Yeah, that'll just make it more annoying, but it'll still be vandalized and/or stolen. Passersby may even join in and beat the crap out of it so it'll stop shrieking sooner.

Re:Hang about.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be less likely to steal it, but much more likely to vandalize it.

Yes, this is a wondrful idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

because NOT bolting them down will discourage theft.

And I for one

[Televisor]

I for one welcome our new robot overlords!

Re:And I for one

[richie2000]

I for one welcome our trite, overused expression overlords!

Re:And I for one

[Televisor]

Well, at least you didn't miss the irony. Oh shit, there it is again. Don't take it seriously, I get pissed off at the overuse of that expression too, so I took the opportunity to deprive the people who do find it funny of the chance to do it ;)

Re:And I for one

[MattWhitworth]

In Soviet Russia, electronic Dalek bins rubbish you!

Re:And I for one

[kfg]

The only problem being in that this one was one of the actual funny ones. Well played.

KFG

ever better!

[LandownEyes]

Seems like more activity than most slashdotters I know!

Re:ever better!

[Anonymous Coward]

And most slashdotters you know don't push bullshit websites and spam either.

A good hack would be to give them Dalek voices...

[Anonymous Coward]

EX TER mi NATE!

DOC TOR!!

Yes, but...

[Fallingcow]

According to the article, they 'move and chuckle' and 'sing when the sun comes out.'

Yeah, but do they sigh contentedly when used?

Re:Yes, but...

[Televisor]

Well, seeing as it's England they won't be singing much anyway ;)

Re:Yes, but...

[FrostedWheat]

Yeah, but do they sigh contentedly when used?

Yes. And it's so depressing.

Re:Yes, but...

[mog007]

Life, don't talk to me about life.

Re:Yes, but...

[RichardX]

I'm sorry did I say something wrong well excuse me for breathing which I never do anyways so I don't even know why I bothered to say it oh god I'm so depressed.

Large-scale irritation

[ettlz]

Safe fom theft, yes. But this will not go down well. They're like twisted appliances from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. These bins will be a certain target for vandalism --- especially after they've annoyed the hell out of all-and-sundry with their cheerful singing. Pah! It just confirms what people in the UK have known all along: local councils are full of rubbish.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[LiquidCoooled]

I hadn't thought of HG2G creatures, instead I thought of the Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf.

That little toaster put up with so much abuse.
All it wanted to do was toast things.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[bhtooefr]

Somebody needs to look for "Sirius Cybernetics" on these things. I just can't wait for the failed one that got Marvin's firmware ;-)

I've never been over there - I've been in the US all of my life....

Re:Large-scale irritation

[hey!]

These bins will be a certain target for vandalism

I wonder what it would be like if you programmed these things to squeal in agony like a baby animal being tortured. We have a tendency to fill in human characteristics to anything that exhibits behavior we can fit into a human patter -- behavior we can find a human explanation for. People who live with an old car for a long time tend to personify it's mechanial quirks.

Randomly breaking into song is just stupid elevator music, but singing to great the sunrise has a kind of charm to it.

In any case, I'd bet exhibiting pain would deter many casual vandals. The ones who aren't deterred may be people you want to keep your eye on.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[ettlz]

They will ultimately be used for advertising. Consider this extract from a little-known film-noir:

Week 1. A meeting with Marco in the high-street. I was a few minutes early, so I stopped in Starbucks and got a double mochachino with hundreds-and-thousands. I think there was some coffee in there somewhere. The street bins were out on patrol, and one of them trundled up to me. I dumped the empty cup in its receptacle.

Why thank-you! Isn't it lovely today? The sun is out, not a bird in the sky. Have a nice day!

Somehow, that made my day.

Week 2. Another meeting. Again, I was early so I got lunch at McDonalds. I felt slightly guilty about myself, yet strangely satisified: a regular fries with a double cheeseburger and strawberry shake can do that to a man. The little bin came up to me again. "Hello, little buddy," I said as I dumped the wrapper in its receptacle.

Why thank-you! Isn't it lovely today? The sun is out, not a bird in the sky. Ba-ba-ba-ba-da, I'm lovin' it!

That made me feel better about myself, sure, but I couldn't help but feel that the little bin had changed its tune somehow.

Week 5. The final meeting. I showed up early, as normal, and got lunch at one of those trendy sandwich bars. Turkey with mayo, raisins and Marmite. It tasted as weird as hell, but was somehow compelling. That little bin made its way over again. I dumped the empty sandwich box in its dutiful opening, and once more he sang out.

A-ding-ding-ding-dddding-bah-bah-pscht...
Get the Crazy Frog ringtone on your mobile! Text Jamster! on...

Later on the news, I heard Marco was found dead in the parking lot of the Grafton Centre.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to arm our bins! Only then we will be safe from vandalism..eh..terrorism I mean.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[Anonymous Coward]

In any case, I'd bet exhibiting pain would deter many casual vandals.

Maybe it's just me, but I came into a totally opposite conclusion.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[Anonymous Coward]

People with above-average food consumption might object to making benches squeal in pain.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[malsdavis]

Well I think its admirable that they are taking the intiative to try and further improve the streets around Cambridge, although last time I visited Cambridge they already looked very good and clean (which is always the most important thing in my view).

I think a further improvement would be to make these robotic bins have 'patches' of pavement/sidewalks to maintain.

The vandalism problem shouldn't be too much a problem, Camrbidge already have ample CCTV cameras overlooking most of the centre streets and a decent casing would stop all but the most determined and persistant idiot (who could then be swooped on by police alerted by the CCTV). Some sort of tracking device could also help prevent theft.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[One Childish N00b]

It sounds like you're not from the UK, and haven't visited in the last four or five years.

You're ignoring the 'chav' mentality amongst many British youths, where the idea of fun of a Saturday night is to go out in a pack of about 30 and find actual humans to beat and hospitalize. If you've any spent any time in any reasonably large town in Britain after about 9PM, you'll know what I mean, and know that exhibiting pain is likely to draw more vandalism than it deters.

Sad state of affairs, I know, but that's what it's like here - any other UK Slashdotters want to back me up on this?

Re:Large-scale irritation

[Atrax]

I'll back you up on that, even though I'm an expat. I went 'home' recently for a flying visit and the centre of town (Swansea) had morphed from the reasonably calm (ish) regional centre I remembered into some kind of mad alcohol fueled anarchic mental asylum, with gangs of nutcases beating random objects and people in an alcoholic haze, as if somehow hoping it'd impress the half-dressed drunk chicks.

I wasn't happy. I'm not used to feeling scared in my 'own' town (and I'm not a small defenseless lad either). I was relieved to take a night out in Sydney on my return and actually feel comfortable.

But back to the bins. The fact the bins move around and form relationships with the benches worries me. Picture this: hot summer day. some genius has slathered a bin in sugary drinks, and wasps are congregating, as they do. You take a seat at a handy bench and take out your newspaper and start the crossword. Two minutes later said bin wanders up and starts nuzzling the bench, unwittingly bringing its deadly cargo of waspdom with it. Engrossed in the crossword, you don't notice until it's too late and one of the stripey bastards has found its way down the back of your neck...

Aaaaaargh!!!

Re:Large-scale irritation

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the bins should squeal in 'pain' whenever used, and maybe even bitch and moan about people throwing all the garbage into them. And I don't just mean one line repeated over and over, I mean dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of lines, partially randomized and partially keyed to the weight (or other attributes) of the items being thrown away.

I bet people would throw away every bit of trash they could find (and perhaps some things that aren't trash ;-) just to see how the trash can would react.

It's not a pleasant commentary on humanity, but I bet it would work better than singing to greet the sunrise!

Re:Large-scale irritation

[Neoprofin]

As someone, who like most people, took great pleasure in nuking/napalming/firebombing/running over large infantry formations in RTS games I would welcome the chance to beat a screaming bench without mercy. Is this because I'm some deranged sociopath with no heart or soul? No, it's because it's a bench, an inanimate bench, and people shouldn't be so upset if it's howling.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[FidelCatsro]

I've been to Cambridge a few times and i was amazed at how little vandalism occurs considering how many students are there . Its a very nice city and is kept surprisingly clean and the campus i was staying at was immaculate. Living in the part of Germany i do now its common to see graffiti everywhere and its really depressing to see some beautiful old building ruined (and some ugly old DDR buildings as-well which is less annoying), but i have seen only one piece of graffiti in Cambridge . To be fair i have only spent a very short amount of time there , and have not seen all the city , but I would say I've seen a fair amount of it , i Do not think vandalism will be a problem , which is perhaps one of the reasons Cambridge was chosen for such an endeavour

Re:Large-scale irritation

[smithwis]

No, that's just ordinary fear of youth.

I was living in Chelmsford (Arguably the capitol of Chavdom) for about 6 months and all my older relatives were making this same complaint. A little worried I ventured into Chelmsford on a Friday evening and discovered this to be BS.

Sure, some people drink to much. And sure, some kids are up to no good. Tell me again how this is unusual.

Just like the recent scare of hoodies, it's mostly a misunderstanding of youth by adults. Sure some youngsters are genuinely dangerous, the vast majority are not.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[PyroMosh]

I really can't believe you're the only other one that picked up on that and posted to the effect. First thing I thought of.

- Listen, - said Ford, who was still engrossed in the sales brochure,
- they make a big thing of the ship's cybernetics. A new generation of
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP
feature.
- GPP feature? - said Arthur. - What's that?
- Oh, it says Genuine People Personalities.
- Oh, - said Arthur, - sounds ghastly.
A voice behind them said,
- It is. - The voice was low and hopeless and accompanied by a slight
clanking sound. They span round and saw an abject steel man standing
hunched in the doorway.
- What? - they said.
- Ghastly, - continued Marvin, - it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just
don't even talk about it. Look at this door, - he said, stepping through
it. The irony circuits cut into his voice modulator as he mimicked the
style of the sales brochure. - All the doors in this spaceship have a
cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and
their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.
As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed
have a satisfied sigh-like quality to it.
- Hummmmmmmyummmmmmm ah! - it said.
Marvin regarded it with cold loathing whilst his logic circuits
chattered with disgust and tinkered with the concept of directing physical
violence against it Further circuits cut in saying, Why bother? What's the
point? Nothing is worth getting involved in. Further circuits amused
themselves by analysing the molecular components of the door, and of the
humanoids' brain cells. For a quick encore they measured the level of
hydrogen emissions in the surrounding cubic parsec of space and then shut
down again in boredom. A spasm of despair shook the robot's body as he
turned.
- Come on, - he droned, - I've been ordered to take you down to the
bridge. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you
down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[mrseigen]

We had singing trash bins at the local McDonalds' for quite some time. I remember them producing newspaper articles talking about how awesome it was that we lived in an age of singing trash bins.

The next day, I come in and saw that the trash bins weren't singing anymore; some smartass had clipped the speaker wire with a pair of pliers. My hat is off to him/her/it.

Personally, I'd make the garbage cans randomly scream in terror at passersby and defend themselves against attackers by means of an embedded stun-gun. Then again, I just like to see people get hurt.

Re:Large-scale irritation

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaaaahhhh! All those references to Starbucks and McDonalds... I had to look at goatse for a half hour just to get the nasty taste out of my mind. You're a sick, sick man!

What is the obsession...

[hoka]

with making everything hi-tech? I mean these days you can get just about anything that is wired, high-tech, and overdeveloped. Its technologies such as this that are nice as an art, but fail to really push the bounds of technology since they have limited applicability. Who wants to spend 110 grand on a set of garbage bins? Not me. Not anybody I know.

While I applaud the effort for making it artsy and cool, trying to say that the technology is useful for anything else preemptively is well, marketing bullshit and hype. It's nice to dream but sometimes we have to all keep our feet on the ground.

This reminds me of...

[Caspian]

...the doors on the "Heart of Gold" in the H2G2 movie... the ones that sigh.

Re:This reminds me of...

[Anonymous Coward]

It reminds me of the book. Some of us are happy enough having only read all the books, listened to all of the radio series, played to completion the game, watched the whole BBC tv series and subscribing to the fanclub magazine.

Actually, I think i want to go see the film too.... :P

Re:This reminds me of...

[Caspian]

Jesus, calm down. The doors in the movie are a lot less intelligent-- more like these bins are going to be.

It's like...

[AstrumPreliator]

It's like R2-D2's younger brother, R2-D3. He wasn't as successful as his older brother. He didn't get to travel the world with Jedi knights, instead he became a trash bin when he fell in love with a bench. He might not have the glamor of galactic battles, but he keeps the streets clean in his town!

Oh, great...

[adrianbaugh]

Bins with Genuine People Personalities... I wonder if there isn't now at least one terminally depressed bench wandering around Cambridge. Life? Don't talk to me about life!

Re:Oh, great...

[hey!]

This was my thought too. The thing about the GPP devices in Hitchhiker's Guide isn't just that they reproduce the worst characteristics of people. You can't really interact with them in all the ways you would a human being. YOu can't go to their boss or their mother when they're not being cooperative. YOu can't bargain with them. The only thing that has any chance of working with them is threatening. It does raise an interesting possibility. What if you could interact with the bench or bin; not to the degree that it's personality affected its cooperativeness. For example:

User: Bin, do yo have the time?

Bin: It's quarter past nine. By the way the bins down 3rd street say there's a rain squall heading this way; you might want to duck inside until it passes.

User: Is there a Starbucks around here?

Bin: No, but there's an independent espresso shop at 150, just half a block north of here. They left a promotional message on me, would you like to here it?

User: Uh, no thanks.

(Later, in a different part of the city.)

Joe: Bench, have you seen a girl named Mary?

Bench: Somebody was sitting on me for about five minutes earlier this morning, but I don't know if that's who you're looking for. That was about 8 am.

Joe: Well if she shows up, tell her that I waited for half an hour but I had to leave.

(later)

Mary: Was there somebody waiting for somebody here?

(Silence)

Bench: I'm sorry, were you talking to me?

Mary: yes, was somebody waiting for me here?

Bench: Well, somebody was here at about 8AM. About 10 there was a man who was here for five minutes. He left a message for somebody he was waiting for.

Mary: What was the message?

Bench: It might be personal; would you mind telling me your name, dearie?

Mary: My name is "Mary Moe."

Bench: Well, he said if Mary shows up, I should tell her he was waiting for her for half an hour.

Mary: But you said he was only here for five minutes? Around 10 AM?

Bench: Yes. He arrived here at 10 Am, four minutes and five seconds, and left at 10 AM, eight minutes and fifty three seconds.

Mary: Oooh. How can he be such a jerk!

Bench: I'm sorry dearie, I can't help you with that. You sound like you might be in trouble. If you need a real person to talk to, I can put you in touch with one. Are you in trouble?

Mary: Uh, no thanks, I'm fine.

Bench: Don't mention it.

(Later on that day Mary calls Joe)

Mary (on phone): Joe, you jerk! You stood me up!

Joe: No I didn't! I waited for half an hour! I left a message with the bench, the one that sounds like somebody's grandmother!

Mary: You idiot. The bench told me you were only there for only five minutes. And you were late. And you were supposed to meet me by the statue of Douglas Adams, not Lewis Carrol.

Joe: Which statue of Adams?

Mary: The Equestrian one you dope. The seats at the big monument are granite.

Joe: Oh, no! I hate that bench. It's so crabby.

Mary: Not as crabby as I am.

Joe: OK, look, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you I swear!

Mary: Yeah right.

Joe: No, really. Meet me this afternoon at the bench by the pond.

Mary: Which bench?

Joe: The one that sounds like Barry White.

Mary: Oooh! I love that one.

Re:Oh, great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bin:
"Life? Don't talk to me about life!"

Student:
(Oh great, it's one of those AI bins.)
"Okay I won't. Just open wide."

Bin:
"Open wide? Last time I opened wide I got so stuffed I couldn't even shut up afterwards."

Student:
"I don't know how stuffed you currently are but the trash I have fits in my hands, that's all I have to give you."

Bin:
"Yeah, but what's the weight in kg? Last week I was so heavy the cleaning lady refused to dump me. She pushed me round the corner and I got rumbled by a rather large guy. It's not that I'm sexist, I just don't like being pushed around."

Student:
"I swear it's just a small donation. Just say Aaaahhh."

Bin:
"Alright, but if I measure you lied I will start singing in the sun to overwhelm you with the smell of rotting fruit.

Aaaaaahhh, dank u wel."

How long will it be before..

[Anonymous Coward]

..someone 'borrows' one of the bins and hacks it so that it has Tourette syndrome?

It'd be hilarious to hear and see the bins going all over the place with random movements shouting out 'Fuck!', 'Shit!', 'Cunt!', 'Bitch!', 'Dickhead!', etc.

Even if someone didn't take it to this extreme, I bet it won't be too long before someone does hack them to do something different from their original purpose.

Re:How long will it be before..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sounds like you could have a lot of fun with these.

Re:How long will it be before..

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be hilarious to hear and see the bins going all over the place with random movements shouting out 'Fuck!', 'Shit!', 'Cunt!', 'Bitch!', 'Dickhead!', etc.

Read your own Wikipedia link. Uncontrolled cussing (coprolalia) is only a very rare and unusual symptom of Tourette. In most cases its facial ticks, coughing/grunting/moaning noises, or other, much less interesting things.

Re:How long will it be before..

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a sense of humor, dumbass.

Re:How long will it be before..

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us here *do* have Tourette's, you know. :-P

Re:How long will it be before..

[Mechcozmo]

Not funny. Way not funny. As somebody with Tourette's Syndrome, this is actually insulting. I do not curse randomly. I do have tics, which are uncontrollable signals sent by the brain to various parts of the body. Hacking them to do something different? Funny. Insulting people with Tourette's Syndrome? Not.

I guess this explains why you're a fucking Anonymous Coward. Shove your head up your ass, you'll probably like it better in there.

Re:How long will it be before..

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up.

He didn't say anything offensive about people with Tourette's Syndrome, he only stated that shouting out vulgar words can be a symptom of it, and guess what? It can be! (http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tourette/detai l_tourette.htm#32063231; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourettes)

If you're such an over-sensitive fuckhead that someone stating a fact about your disorder offends you, please kill yourself or at the very least get off of the internet.

hey real quick: what movie

[CloudDrakken]

Pretty soon all the chairs will get bored and then yelled at for not acting surprised when someone tries to sit on them.

"Help, Help, I'm being repressed!"

...just because some stool that could sing handed you a sword doesn't make you king of the britons

dissuade gambling

[nietsch]

This artsy project was financed by lottery money (I guess the state runs the lottery in the uk too). So these art failures can be a good example of why you should not waste your money on the lottery.

Re:dissuade gambling

[mwooller]

Indeed - you may as well just tip your cash straight into one of these 'things'.

Re:dissuade gambling

[Anonymous Coward]

No the lottery in the UK is privately run by a company that has to bid for the licence.

Re:dissuade gambling

[jimicus]

I guess the state runs the lottery in the uk too

Well, it's not quite as simple as that. Running the lottery is outsourced to a company called Camelot. The companies wanting to run it had to submit bids explaining what they'd do with the money.

Camelot answered "Give some of it to arts projects, put some of it into the prize fund, use the rest to pay our directors absurd quantities of money", and they got the contract.

Re:dissuade gambling

[rsynnott]

Oddly, when Virgin offered to do a fully non-profit lottery, they were turned down, and Camelot won the contract. In Ireland, it's a state thing (the Post Office runs it). Then again, we used to run a lottery to fund our HOSPITALS!)

Six

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and plans to name all the bins and benches individually..."

Because lord knows they don't want one of them hollering, "I am not a number!"

I'll let you know what they're like...

[Toby The Economist]

Junction is five minutes bicycle ride from here.

--
Toby

Re:I'll let you know what they're like...

[ettlz]

Soon the beggars (and there are a lot of them in Cambridge) will have the run of these things. "Oi! Gizzus a fiver, or Dusty 'ere'll start on 'is Cliff Richard repertoire!"

Re:I'll let you know what they're like...

[rjw57]

And here, I'll be popping down later with my screwdriver set, breakout box and laptop to see if I can give them a reprogramming they'll never forget...

Hmmhmh

[Anonymous Coward]

Im after a few flexible solar strips....
now I know where to get them from :)

Screamers

[Anonymous Coward]

The should scream when you steal them, and continue to scream until you put them back. Then they can sob and cry until comforted by their janitor friends

R2D2, is that you?

[leonbrooks]

Sorry, couldn't resist.

No Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

3.
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Re:No Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I prefer cake!

The real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they running on Intel processors ?

Mactel fanbois thought Apple+Intel was pretty cool, but the future is in garbage+Intel which is THE perfect marriage.

And rest assured these Intel bins will laugh and chuckle as you throw your worthless $3000 G5 into them.

what

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck is a bin?

Re:what

[mwooller]

Well, let's see, err it is a little more open that an sbin.

Re:what

[hey!]

True story. In the late 80s, I worked for a company that used Macs. The guy before me set up the applications on Macs in a folder called "bin" because, well, that's what you do.

Later, I had a young go-getter working for me who decided this was too cryptic. Having learned about computers in the era of the PC, she had no idea where "bin" came from, so she relabelled all those folders to "Bin of Applications".

Re:what

[mwooller]

When the mac was upgraded to OS X, did those old apps get relabelled again to 'Has bin applications'?

Re:what

[chawly]

Might one suppose the same relation between /usr/bin and /usr/sbin? Seems likely. If this is the case, /usr/bin must be more open than /bin, eh ? Else how would you get the usrs inside? Of course everything is possible - one remembers the year when Mum bought a turkey which was too big for the oven. We found this brick and we were able to "arrange" the turkey so as to have it fit. Could this solution be used to "arrange" some of the more "unfit" users ? There are days when I ..... and I could sing too. Just a thought, excuse it please. Sorry.

Prior Art

[tyrions]

There's actually a guy here in Cambridge who sings and plays his guitar on the street. The thing is, he does it with the top part of a bin over his head. He's a real success with the tourists. I wonder if that's where these guys got the idea from.

Re:A good hack would be to give them Dalek voices.

[ettlz]

This does have the makings of a Doctor Who episode. A bunch of cyberbins form a collective intelligence and stalk the streets of Cambridge in their murderous gangs. Only one Timelord can stop them...

What next?

[spizkapa]

How about robotic toilets to come next? You take a crap and the toilet goes "Thank you for shitting, have a nice day!"

For an extra few pennies, the toilet analyses your crap and says "dude, you really should eat more fiber, stop drinking alcohol and eat some fruit"

That would be a whole different meaning to "excremental humour"...

Re:What next?

[calibanDNS]

Do you mean like the ones mentioned here?

I just can't wait until one is hacked to complain about the pain in all of the dioeds down its left side.

Re:What next?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've not seen the public toilets in Cambridge, have you?

Re:What next?

[spizkapa]

Clearly not... Do they wipe your ass, perfume your clothes, do your zipper and shine your shoes? Or are they just full of shit?

Less redneck, racist warmongering texans, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe has plenty of it's own immigrant class, mostly from places like northern africa and eastern europe, on whom the local populace blames lots of bad things.

What I really like about Europe though, as an American, is not really the social model or anything like that, but that it has far fewer ignorant racist inbred hillbilly texan fuckheads.

Re:Less redneck, racist warmongering texans, too

[Anonymous Coward]

By all means, don't come home. Europeans are much more at ease with rampant bigotry, such as you express. Feel the hatred flowing through you.

£110,000!???!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a complete waste of money.

RTFA Everyone!

[bobbis.u]

They are not being installed by the city council and they are not being widely deployed. It is an art display at The Junction, which is not really in the centre of the city anyway.

Apparently, this is just what constitues "art" today. This article is straight from the horses mouth about it.

Thiefs wont want to..

[drspliff]

steal pointless crazy stuff like this, they have no re-sale value (I doubt the components are that expensive, most of the £110k was probably development time and research etc.). Then I saw this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/10/kidnapped_ dalek/

Somebody stole a pointless crazy thing (e.g. a rare original dalek from the Dr.Who series) and their trying to ransom it back..

Putting £110 worth of equipment anywhere in most places in the UK and not bolting it to the ground is always a bad thing...

Re:Thiefs wont want to..

[gstoddart]

Thiefs wont want to.. steal pointless crazy stuff like this, they have no re-sale value

Ummm ... have you noticed the propensity of high-school kids (and drunk people) to wander off with almost anything?

Street signs. Planters. Traffic cones. Traffic lights. Stop signs. Anything really.

I've never seen any evidence that these things have any resale value either, but the damnedest things do get stolen.

oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cambridge is a student town you know...it doesnt matter if its bolted down and given whirling blades of death...

I live in Cambridge

[mumblestheclown]

I've also made several benches, cars, and blades of grass that sing when the sun comes out here.

Which is to say never.

Today, I put on my SKI JUMPER at 12 noon for a short trip outside because it's cold and cloudy. At least it's not raining. Yet. In theory, this is June. In practice, this might pass for february.

In other Cambridge news, there was the recent environment-saving plan: just reduce trash collection frequency (with no corresponding decrease in council tax). This is why I throw my trash into the Cam at night.

Don't feed the bins

[badfish99]

They aren't real bins (they're an art installation). You can't put rubbish in them. There are going to be signs saying "please don't feed the bins".

Re:Don't feed the bins

[ctid]

Where did you get the idea that they are not real bins? As far as I can tell, they are bins and also works of art.

You insensitive clod!

[madaxe42]

I live in the Cam!

Re:You insensitive clod!

[rokzy]

lucky bastard.

there's 150 of us living in shoe box in middle 't road.

Re:You insensitive clod!

[madaxe42]

Shoe? Box!?! Back in my day we used to wear pigeons on our feet! And we thought we were lucky! And they came in a sack! Made of cat hair!

Don't talk to me about life!

[Anonymous Coward]

You watch this bin. Its bin is about to open again. I can tell by its intolerable air of superiority it generates. Thank you the marketing division of the Sirius cybernetics corporation.
I hate that bin. I'm not getting you down am I?

The benches will be singing all the time then?

[carcosa30]

After all, the sun never sets on the british empire, right?

The Japanese build robotic exoskeletons straight out of Mobile Suit Gundam.

The Brits build robotic dustbins and benches.

Typical.

Clippy bench!

[Spy der Mann]

Bins that sing and chuckle are going to be safer from theft? In what alternate universe does the article writer live in?

HELLO THERE!!! LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE TRYING TO STEAL ME!!! Would you like to know more about: Stealing, Robbing, prison, the cops that are coming from the left and were just alerted by me...?

Talk about a wake up call

[Java Ape]

And in other news,several of the town drunks have joined AA after the new benches were installed. George Albert, longtime resident of the community, had this to say. "I had been drinking pretty steady for about five years since I lost my job. I'd lost my family, my house and my self-respect, and thought nobody cared. Then one day I was down by the park, and fell asleep on this shiny new bench. The next morning I heard singing, but there was nobody there, just this voice singing the theme song from Annie 'Tomorrow'. It was like God was talking to me. So I said, "God, is that you?" And I heard, clear as day, God giggling like a little girl. All these things in my life -God's just been teating me! Later, as I was walking through the park, I says, to this trash can, 'Waddaya know bin, God still loves me, isn't it grand?' But it just farted at me and walked away." Other drunks report similar experiences in the park.

Not the first time

[Jeremi]

It's not the first time England has tried this sort of thing. It never leads to any good...

You know you're in trouble

[serutan]

when the bench keeps asking you if you'd like some toast.

Naming Scheme?

[DRue]

plans to name all the bins and benches individually to make carrying out repairs easier.

I'm a little curious how they're planning on naming them..namingschemes.com

Re:Naming Scheme?

[NaDrew]

Thanks for the link to namingschemes.com... useful. I updated the Cheeses entry as long as I was there.

Ob

[clambake]

"Ok bench, I'm going to sit on you, and I don't want you to sigh in satisfation of a job well done and say it was your pleasure to be sat on."

"mmm hmm"

"And I don't want you to tell me how small my butt is today, or how wonderful a day it is, or mention how particularly stunning the trash bin is this morning."

"mmm hmm"

"Ok, here goes..." ...

"whew, not a sound!"

"IS THAT THE WAY YOU LIKE IT MR. BEEBLEBROX?"

Perhaps oblig. Futurama?

[Dachannien]

Bender pumps the keg furiously, trying to get some beer, when he realizes....
Bender: Oh, wait. You're a robot.
Kegbot: Don't stop.
Bender: Ewwww....

And the Dish Ran Away with the Spook

[VoidEngineer]

Wow. When I read this article, all I could think of was "Blebs! They're making effing blebs!"

If you haven't read it already, And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon is a really great short read by up-and-coming sci-fi author Paul Di Filippo.

Gads. Forget the diamond age. It appears that we're intering the age of blebs.

Re:A good hack would be to give them Dalek voices.

[Goobergunch]

Does the bin burp when it eats somebody?

Re:A good hack would be to give them Dalek voices.

[ettlz]

Is the victim with or without clothing?

What is art?

[Kaenneth]

If it makes you think, it's art.

Would the money have been better spent on a thousand hotel-room quality peices?

(side note, what I like to do with a painting is envision the area outside the frame, from clues in the picture; like shadows, reflections, and structural hints, and other hard to quantify bits; like a painting showing 3 people, but there is a table set for four... is the forth person the painter?)

Great story

[Generalisimo Zang]

That's sort of cool.

Now I want talking benches :)

Re:Great story

[hey!]

Thanks.

It raises the question though: even if furniture someday passs the Turing test, does that mean men might as well? I mean of course on the topic of women, as judged by women.

Reminds me of Disneyworld

[Anonymous Coward]

When we went to Disneyworld California a few weeks ago they had a talking and moving trash can that actually responded to your questions and comments. You could even put trash in it. The voice on it sounded just like a robotic trash can, albiet a very annoying one. It was pretty cool even after you noticed the guy standing about ten feet away with one sleeve to his mouth and the other hand in his pocket.

HG2G

[JCY2K]

Necessary cliche.

"Ahhhhhhhh"
~Doors on the Heart of Gold

This is just the beginning...

[suitepotato]

Eventually we may see electric motor equipped dumpsters that take themselves to the dump, with an empty coming in at the same time to replace it for the week. If not all the way to the dump, possibly to a nearby flatbed carrier that would take it down the highway and back from a designated meeting spot.

Larger trash bins on city streets equipped with wireless net cams could double as police eyes on the street and clean-up crew, and rudimentary robotic arms could pick up and dispose of garbage.

Your cat's automatic self-cleaning cat box could dump its own storage bin when full and then roll off to another spot, perhaps wherever the cat happens to be for its convenience.

Really cool would be a cubicle-less office with wide open floors and much smaller kioskified desk/chair assemblies that came over to you when you called, and could even carry you like an electric scooter to another area of the complex.

And of course we could use mall robots that were programmed with the current inventory of every store and could answer basic questions of people looking for something and direct them to it, roving around helping all day.

There's a lot we could do with this sort of technology. Combined with rudimentary AI and A-Life code, Internet based sharing of learning files including speaker-independent voice recognition (ask yourself why every voice recognition app hasn't been sharing your app's learned information with others and synthesizing a superior recognition database for years; no paranoids, I mean the raw recognition modelling database and not recorded words of yours), and proper useful tasks, we could see rapid successful adoption.

Now that...

[v0idnull]

the cure for cancer has been found we are able to work on superfluous stuff like this

NOW Chinese furniture re-org

[Lotharjade]

I can see it now. Every so often all the bins and benches will reorganise them selves into different patterns. In unison they will all say "WILL THE FUNG SHUI CLUB STOP REORGANIZING THE BINS AND BENCHES!!!", and over in one corner a bin is running around going "I CAN'T FIND MY CHI! I CAN'T FIND MY CHI! EEEEEE!!!"