BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans

Subject: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Feb 12 - 01:16 AM

Reported a couple of days ago. The London Financial District will get about 100 new Trash Bins (also called Recycling Bins in the report) under a 21 year contract. The first 50 of the new bins are to appear soon. The bins are claimed to cost $30,000 each, which the manufacturer well cover - due to the much better grade of trash generated in the Financial District(?) ... ... or something.

The Report:

Recycling bins with LCD screens hit London's streets

By John Roach
18 Feb 20123

The trash can is getting an upgrade. Instead of a just a receptacle for recyclable rubbish, new models hitting London's streets feature LCD screens that display breaking news, stock quotes, emergency alerts, and, naturally, advertisements.

What's more, the high-tech bins are made of a material that is reportedly four times stronger than steel, a feature that could thwart attempts to use them as a place to plant bombs.

Renew, the company behind the functional billboards, aims to deploy a network of 100 bins in London's financial district by this summer, providing advertisers the opportunity to catch the eyeballs of deep-pocketed consumers as they pop out of the office for a spot of tea.
The company inked a 21-year contract with London in part because the bins' toughness is a solution to clean up streets littered with papers handed out on street corners. Standard trash cans are discouraged in the city due to terrorist threats.

In case an emergency occurs, the bin network is equipped with instant-messaging capabilities that allow delivery of updates directly from civil authorities, allowing increased public awareness.

Each bin costs about $30,000, a hefty sum that Renew eats in order to sell content providers access to the LCD screens.

According to the company's studies, the current rollout of 50 screens is sufficient to engage a financial district worker a minimum of six times per day.

Renew also markets the receptacles as environmentally friendly. The screens have what's called adaptive brightness technology that they claim is energy-sipping instead of guzzling. In addition, Renew says it will donate 1 percent of profits to sustainable energy projects for world cities.

While the planet might be better off without any energy-sipping billboards, at least London's streets will be cleaner and its workers more engaged with advertisers.

[End of the report.]

In another report that appeared a couple of hours ago, that appears to be a rehash of prior news:

[Report 2]

Report: UK anti-terror plan to sweep up email, phone, online records

By msnbc.com staff

Data on all phone calls, text messages, email traffic and online visits would be stored for a year in vast databases under a new anti-terrorism plan in Britain, The Telegraph reported Saturday on its website.

The report, which did not cite sources, said that phone companies and broadband providers would be ordered to store the information themselves for a year for security services' "real-time" inspection under the plan. Contents of phone calls, texts or emails would not be recorded, The Telegraph said, but the databases would retain the phone numbers and email addresses sent from and to.

And the plan would reach into social networking for the first time, The Telegraph reported, allowing security services to get information about direct messages between users of Facebook, Twitter and similar sites, and even between players in online video games.

The Telegraph said the government had been negotiating with Internet companies for two months and the plan could be announced as early as May.

The newspaper noted that there could be concerns over civil liberties issues and over the security of the records themselves.

It wasn't clear if the plan applied only to domestic communications or whether international calls, texts and tweets would be swept up in the databases. The newspaper described the plan as a reworking of a proposal abandoned in 2009 by the previous Labour government amid a storm of criticism.

[End of Report 2]

Isn't this one dejaphooey or something.

Maybe it's resurfaced because they're thinking the bins might be a good place to store all the sh*t they collect(?)

John

Subject: RE: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Feb 12 - 08:16 AM

"Sorry about rear-ending your Bentley, old chap. I was distracted by the Victoria's Secret advert on that trash can...."

Subject: RE: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: Musket
Date: 19 Feb 12 - 09:42 AM

Good job there is no such thing as an average Polish couple then. zzzz

Just to be rather British as I am sure many Stateside expect this; there are no trash cans in London, and there never can be.

I believe trash cans are items you have in The USA? I have heard the term on US movies such as Star Wars and documentaries such as The Simpsons, and I believe they resemble rubbish bins or dustbins. Indeed, we sometimes differentiate recycling bins from dustbins so we can get a warm fuzzy feeling about doing something for the planet. (As opposed to not buying times with so much packaging in the first place.)

Subject: RE: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: mg
Date: 20 Feb 12 - 12:10 AM

I saw some great ones in Astoria OR USA today..they had repros of salmon labels used on salmon tins...they were just a great bit of local art and very attractive. Could use pictures from orange boxes, apples, whatever elsewhere. Very tourist attractive I think and locals would appreciate even more. I thought oh how clever to do this..mg

Subject: RE: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 20 Feb 12 - 07:14 AM

I saw on TV recently a rubbish bin with a CCTV camera nearby, and a loudspeaker. If someone threw litter on the pavement, a disembodied voice frightened the life out of them. It even described them, eg "That lady in the red coat!..." and told them to pick it up and bin it. I'd love that job, their expressions were pricelss!

Subject: RE: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 Feb 12 - 01:36 PM

I think its worth pointing out that a Litter Bin and a Recycling Receptacle are two seperate entities , though your average City Twit
probably wont differentiate .
Even if the aforementioned receptacle has some Fancy LCD generated Advertising message !

Subject: RE: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: gnu
Date: 20 Feb 12 - 01:54 PM

"Each bin costs about $30,000, a hefty sum that Renew eats in order to sell content providers access to the LCD screens."

No problem.

I'll bet they have cams in them to freak out the paranoids.

Subject: RE: BS: London Gets $30,000 Trash Cans
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Feb 12 - 12:53 AM

Watching MI-5 (aka Spooks) on Netflix, one is surprised this isn't already the case, for dust bins and social media data etc.!:-)