NEWS FROM THE FUTURE – “I saw a bit of the future in a Taipei tax cab”… Kevin Kelly writes-
I saw a bit of the future in a Taipei tax cab this afternoon. Mounted on the front windshield is a $100 HD video monitor which records everything that happens in front of the car. If there is an accident, the video becomes evidence. Good news if you are a good driver — which most people believe. Eventually all vehicles will have multiple cameras recording front, back and side.
Black boxes for cars, wireless video streams storing to the “cloud”, sensors storing everything. Your insurance policy of the future will include how many gigabytes you’re allowed to store.
22 thoughts on “NEWS FROM THE FUTURE – “I saw a bit of the future in a Taipei tax cab””
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I have one installed already. picked it up from ebay. there are good quality ones and the cheaper $30+ all work but love the one I have audio and video is excellent!
I’ve seen similar ones in Japanese Taxis, though they worked a little differently. It had a camera that faced traffic and another inside the cab. They recorded continuously but would throw away old video if it wasn’t remarkable. If the airbag went off, antilock breaks triggered, accelerometer went over a rating, etc it would save and upload the current video plus the previous 60 seconds. It also had a panic button on top that the cab driver could hit to trigger a save which would do the same thing.
While I’m sure it was great for insurance and court, quite a lot of the footage ended up on “Japan’s Greatest Taxi Accidents”-type TV shows.
I’ve had various “eye witness cam’s” deployed in my cars for years. These have usually been some kind of hacked system I’ve cobbled together but for the last year or so I have simply been using a GoPro on a commercial mount attached to the passenger seat headrest (so it is between the seats and far enough back to see the dash instruments, part of me, and out the front/side windows). The wide angle lens on the default GoPro is perfect for this application. And yes, as I tell my friends, I do manually screw the camera to the mount every time I drive, turn it on, turn it off, purge the old video, unmount it, and recharge it every day (or whenever I drive anywhere) — it becomes a habit and now I feel as naked when I forget to bring it along as I do if I drive without a seatbelt. So far I’ve never needed the video footage (knock on wood).
I saw one on a bike helmet yesterday.
As I’ve said for years, the incoming flood of small self-contained video systems and the OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE they collect will be “the six-shooter of the NEW west”, ie: the great equalizer. It is currently far too easy to be victimized by faulty/fraudulent SUBJECTIVE TESTIMONY and swarmy lawyers. I also pack a Looxcie and recorded video security cameras outside my house. Again, never needed any of it so far but luck favors the prepared.
5 years out we will probably start seeing such a system integrated into high in vehicles heck most of them already have back up assist cameras easy enough just to add those into a system like this. Anyone got recommendations on a good cheap one of these I can easy see this being worth the money when some yahoo pulls out in front of you.
I bought that exact model for £25 from a UK based store.. had to reset it a few times now it doesn’t work anymore… boooo. Have to send it back for refund, or replacement. Other more expensive ones will give GPS location and speed, and even auto record(store recording) on impact.. Seen one like that at Maplin electronics :)
If this is “the future”, where are you from? These things have been around for years – at least where I live. It is simply present life, and in Taiwan a necessity…
If you haven’t noticed but most of News from the future are things we can already see around todays life, but they are a rariety. I think the future part comes from you can expect to see these previous fringe items mainstreamed in a few years.
I rather suspect the article series title is a reference to Gibson, particularly the famous “the future is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed” remark.
not sure how this is the “future”, the spanish bus lines that run across the GW bridge in NYC had these for years now. One for looking inside the bus and to the front.