Technology in parks roundup
The iPhone application The Hidden Park.
A number of new technology-based parks applications have come online recently: Park Scan allows San Francisco park visitors to report maintenance issues to relevant city officials and to track prior reports; Off Leash is an iPhone app that directs users to the nearest off-leash dog park; The Hidden Park, also for the iPhone, leads kids through site-wide scavenger hunts of ten major world parks, including Central Park. Users “solve puzzles and photograph landmarks in order to reveal magical creatures and save the park from developers.”
The hybridization of personal technology and public spaces is intriguing but might not have yet reached mainstream desirability. A recent TreeHugger poll found that a majority of respondents (40%) would prefer not to have WiFi access in parks–opining that “there should be somewhere you can go and get away from the electronic fog.”
(via City Parks Blog and Making Places)
