FixMyTransport.com Beta

FixMyTransport.com Beta

FixMyTransport

Clean Mapping Interface to report problems with your routes (bus, train,tram/metro ferry)

FixMyTransport options

FixMyTransport was built to help people get common public transport problems resolved. It is targeted specifically at smaller problems such as persistently broken ticket machines, buses that always leave early, or silly rules that appear to do nothing but create inconvenience for travellers.

What is it all about?

At a basic level, FixMyTransport makes it easy for people to send problem reports to the companies or authorities responsible for those problems.

However, we know that simply sending an email often won’t be enough to get a problem resolved. That’s why we’ve built a complete system to make it easy to gather support other people, whether fellow commuters, colleagues or friends. We believe that this is worth doing because a transport company that doesn’t respond to one person may very well respond to ten.

We hope that FixMyTransport will also help people by becoming part of the wider internet community of transport activists and campaigners. In particular, we hope that that community comes to see FixMyTransport as a place where experts and old hands can transfer their skills to people who have little or no experience of lobbying for change.

As well as being aimed at helping people to solve transport problems, FixMyTransport represents an experiment to discover whether a sufficiently well designed internet service can help tip people over the edge from grumbling about a problem to taking action to resolve it. We welcome your thoughts on how to measure whether or not we’re succeeding.

Created by http://www.mysociety.org/

FixMyTransport.com Beta (with map interface openlayers/googlemaps)

http://www.fixmytransport.com/

The patents attack Android

Android is on fire. More than 550,000 Android devices are activated every day, through a network of 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers. Android and other platforms are competing hard against each other, and that’s yielding cool new devices and amazing mobile apps for consumers.

But Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.

They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Phone 7; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.

A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a “tax” for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation.

This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth. The winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.

We’re not naive; technology is a tough and ever-changing industry and we work very hard to stay focused on our own business and make better products. But in this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we’re determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it.

We’re looking intensely at a number of ways to do that. We’re encouraged that the Department of Justice forced the group I mentioned earlier to license the former Novell patents on fair terms, and that it’s looking into whether Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for anti-competitive means. We’re also looking at other ways to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening our own patent portfolio. Unless we act, consumers could face rising costs for Android devices — and fewer choices for their next phone.

UPDATE August 4, 2011 – 12:25pm PT

It’s not surprising that Microsoft would want to divert attention by pushing a false “gotcha!” while failing to address the substance of the issues we raised. If you think about it, it’s obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer. Microsoft’s objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners. Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android — and having us pay for the privilege — must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn’t fall for it.

Ultimately, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened, forcing Microsoft to sell the patents it bought and demanding that the winning group (Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, EMC) give a license to the open-source community, changes the DoJ said were “necessary to protect competition and innovation in the open source software community.” This only reaffirms our point: Our competitors are waging a patent war on Android and working together to keep us from getting patents that would help balance the scales.

Twain on Being Surprising

 

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”

–Mark Twain (1835–1910)
American writer

Do your actions…

  1. create a positive buzz about you and your work?
  2. make others want you as a part of their team?
  3. make your employer cringe at the thought of losing you to a competitor?
  4. make your customers excited about referring you to their colleagues?

You want your actions to scream value without the need for you to say a word. This is where you want to be – with those in your company and industry – and with those to whom you’re selling.

This is what creates true economic and job security – the value you and your team create for others.

This is care (what it’s all about).

When you have the opportunity over the next few days, set a reminder to review these four questions at the end of each month. Then, give yourself a little (objective) attention by reviewing them and creating an action plan to improve in each area where you feel you should.

Easier said than done… still needs to be done.