Category: Blog

There are a tonne of apps out there at the moment in smartphone land, but one that has made me sit up and take notice is the tramTRACKER for the iPhone, from Yarra Trams in Victoria.

What this little app does is track your tram in real time. So if is running late, or has broken down, you can log into the app on your smartphone and find out where the tram is located. It uses GPS technology so users can find out the estimated arrival time of a tram at their stop.

We all know just check it out on your phone and if it is running late, you don’t have to hurry, or if it is on time, then you can get your skates on.

More importantly, though, what I find interesting about this app is how it can be used in other public transport such as buses and trains. I know that Sydney’s City Rail has something similar, and that a few months ago they tried to stop third-party software that gave out the running time of trains.
I think it is short-sighted when companies do this because, at the end of the day, it’s about the commuter and not some petty bureaucracy getting its nose out of joint.

I hope that in the near future, more of the state public transport companies get onboard if similar applications are released for mobile phones. Hopefully this is just the beginning.

A small study out of the US caught my eye as I was looking through news over the weekend. The Medical College of Georgia conducted an experiment on a small group of patients who are suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.

Using a Nintendo Wii console, researchers had patients play a game on the console for an hour at a time to test their reactions and state of mind.
Researchers say they noted marked improvement in hand-eye co-ordination, and they also claimed that participants rate of depression went down to zero (depression is understandably high amongst Parkinson’s patients).

Although there was only a control group of 20, and the length of the trail two months, what piqued my interest was the use of gaming technology being used to help sufferers of what can be a debilitating disease. This comes on the back of a recent report about gaming technology being used to help researchers find out why some babies are still born.
People who hate gaming tend to think of it as a waste of time – “you should get out more”, “can’t you do something more constructive” is often the catch cry of parents of teenagers who immerse themselves in gaming for hours at a time.

But, as these couple of instances show, there is more to gaming than just entertainment value. There is definitely a place for this technology in the wider world and I for one believe this is just the beginning of technologies used in the entertainment field will have a cross-over into other areas, including medicine.

Further to my post a couple of days ago about Australia’s involvement in a study that is looking at paperless exams, comes a story out of the US where California Governor and former actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking to do away with textbooks.

In a cost-cutting measure that could save the cash-strapped state hundreds of millions of dollars, Schwarzenegger has mooted the idea that with most kids attuned to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, then taking that technology a step further by phasing out text books in favour of a electronic equivalent is a natural progression.

I think it is not only a good idea, but about time it happened. Schwarzenegger wondered aloud why we are still using 15th century technology (printing based on the Gutenberg Press), in a world where most households have at least one computer and a range of other portable devices.

There are other tangible benefits too, and not just to help kids learn. As well as getting instant updates on a subject and having information literally at your fingertips, there is no longer a need to go to libraries to study (which, to be fair, could be a bad thing too – some kids might be tempted to do less constructive things on their computers when they should be studying), or to lug around heavy text books, and think of the number of trees that might be saved, which would make the Greenies happy.

There are a couple of downsides I can see. Text books tend to be pretty comprehensive, whereas a lot of online content sometimes tends to be once-over-lightly in nature. And if you were to make a comprehensive textbook available online, its pure size might cause navigation issues, especially for technophobes. Also, text book publishers would not give out their content for free, so there would be some cost involved. Of course the other big issue would be peripheral people who work in the printing and forestry trades could be a little put out. But, over all, I think the Governator is onto something.