There is this screen in St. Pancras station:
(indeed, there are lots of these around at stations). When I first saw these screens, they offered a rolling news service, alternating periods of news display with periods of advertising. I’d often watch them for a while, a quick chance to catch up on news and weather whilst waiting for a train.
I rather liked the way that this mashed up online information with the physical world. It certainly felt futuristic—like Bladerunner, but in a good way! This idea of mashing up the physical with the online is rather appealing, and whilst I wouldn’t want to see the urban environment dominated by such things, it was good to see some examples of this just as a day-to-day thing rather than an experiment or artwork.
Unfortunately, this seems to have stopped doing anything interesting now. It just displays dull 20th-century stylee ads for the Sky channels. It has become another thing on the “to ignore” list, redolent of a dull TV ad break from the era when we didn’t timeshift TV rather than something futuristic. I want my future back.
Update 2010-09-22. Live news and weather is now back at St. Pancras Station. The future is back on track.