If you are sitting at a table at a lunch gathering, and a stranger starts talking about an iPhone App that is supposed to do some unbelievable thing, do you sit quietly and listen politely, or do you go all Aspergers on them and call B.S.?
The App in question is Traffic Light . When triggered, it would either change a traffic light to green or cause a green light to stay green longer than it would have.
Many cities have traffic light devices that allow emergency vehicle drivers to change the traffic light with a signal emitting Opticom device which is mounted on the roof of the vehicle. It gets them where they want to go with green lights all the way, but it plays Hell with the traffic flow.
Naturally the folks in city traffic departments don't like for people to abuse that privilege, and they sure don't want just anyone out there meddling with the traffic light sequences.
Many states have made it illegal for anyone but police, fire and emergency personnel to interfere with traffic lights. For example, the Texas Transportation Code Sec. 544.0055 makes it a class "C" misdemeanor -- fine of up to $500.
For an iPhone to be able to operate as a traffic signal changer it would have to emit either an infra-red light or radio signal. An iPhone is already a radio transmitter, so that would seem to be the most likely means of getting the signal to the light. But the phone would have to emit just the right frequency to activate the light changer, and that's where it would get complicated, too complicated for a cheap app.
So I call B.S.
I've heard about the app that makes gentle or a noisy alarm to call your attention if the lights change. Nothing else.
Posted by: Chuck | December 02, 2011 at 07:21 AM
Apple will not create such app in my opinion. That app could ruin the sequences of stoplight every minute. Might cause accidents too. Bad idea to create such application.
Posted by: plumbing | December 03, 2011 at 01:59 PM