London’s historic statues will start calling smartphones from this week

By Trevor Mogg Published August 18, 2014

londons historic statues will start calling smartphones from this week peter pan talking statue — ”Talking

If you told a friend that a statue on the street had started talking to you, there’s a chance they might give you a heartfelt squeeze of the shoulder before uttering “Sure it did” and giving you the number of someone that can help you with that kind of thing.

However, include the information that there was some high-tech jiggery-pokery involved and they may refrain from handing over the number and instead ask you to elaborate.

Recommended Videos

The above scenario is perfectly possible, especially if you find yourself plodding about the streets of London or Manchester this week.

From Tuesday, 35 statues of famous folk – fictional and not so fictional – will connect with your smartphone and regale you with entertaining tales of their fascinating lives (even if some of them are completely made up).

The 12-month project is the work of arts outfit Sing London and technology group Antenna. UK-based Digital R&D Funds for the Arts is backing the initiative, which is aimed at generating more interest in the arts by using technology to bring public spaces to life.

Related: UK art gallery lets you control robots over the Internet for a night-time tour

The short monologues have been penned and voiced by British writers and actors, with statues including Queen Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton all clearing their throats in readiness for your visit. Oh, a cat (Samuel Johnson’s, apparently) and a goat (probably not Samuel Johnson’s) are also among the listed statues [pdf], though quite how they’re going to communicate with passers-by is anyone’s guess.

There are several ways to get a statue to call you up – those with NFC-enabled handsets can simply swipe their device over the tag at the base of the statue, leaving those without to either scan a QR code or enter a Web address.

“You don’t need to download anything,” Sing London‘s artistic director Colette Hiller told the Guardian, adding, “Your phone will just ring and it will say, ‘Sherlock Holmes is on the phone for you’ and the monologue begins.”

Sing London, a group that describes itself as offering “high profile, participatory events to make cities feel happy,” hit the news a few years back with talking trash cans that applauded, said “thanks,” or simply burped when you threw your trash in.

[Source: Leicester University via Guardian]

Topics

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Cars

BYD’s cheap EVs might remain out of Canada too

BYD Han

With Chinese-made electric vehicles facing stiff tariffs in both Europe and America, a stirring question for EV drivers has started to arise: Can the race to make EVs more affordable continue if the world leader is kept out of the race?

China’s BYD, recognized as a global leader in terms of affordability, had to backtrack on plans to reach the U.S. market after the Biden administration in May imposed 100% tariffs on EVs made in China.

Cars

Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say

Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

Cars

Waymo, Nexar present AI-based study to protect ‘vulnerable’ road users

waymo data vulnerable road users ml still 1 ea18c3

Robotaxi operator Waymo says its partnership with Nexar, a machine-learning tech firm dedicated to improving road safety, has yielded the largest dataset of its kind in the U.S., which will help inform the driving of its own automated vehicles.

As part of its latest research with Nexar, Waymo has reconstructed hundreds of crashes involving what it calls ‘vulnerable road users’ (VRUs), such as pedestrians walking through crosswalks, biyclists in city streets, or high-speed motorcycle riders on highways.