- Free Wi-Fi in New York
About 7,500 phone booths in New York are going to be transformed into Wi-Fi access points within the following few months. The old infrastructure of the big city is thus going to be upgraded, with the goal of satisfying the needs of the modern citizens.
Each booth will be able to broadcast Internet signal within a range of about 150 feet. Not only that, but they will also have USB charging ports, a godsend for most people, who have big screen smartphones, and thus run out of battery juice quite often.
The built-in booth display will also let the users browse the net, use several online maps services and make free phone calls right from the street. The provided Internet connection is going to be up to 20 times faster in comparison with what is currently available in New York.
Manhattan Union Square is the first place where the old phone booths have started to be upgraded. The project was started in 2015, and it is believed that first free Internet booths are going to be ready in July 2016, after a short test period. It is estimated that at the end of the program, people throughout the entire city will have access to free Internet. According to Mr. George Hardesty, CEO at Data Alliance, the infrastructure will allow the data to travel at speeds that may reach a gigabit per second.
The US houses close to 2.2 million phone booths. Many of them have simply been removed as people have stopped using them. And since most people own cell phones these days, it wasn’t easy to predict their end. The project will expand within the next years, with the goal of providing about 10,000 free Internet booths in NYC alone.
The program, known as LinkNYC, is going to receive funds from advertising campaigns. According to the initial estimations, about 500 million USD will be generated within the first 12 years of operation. This program has created close to 150 full time jobs and about 600 support jobs. The funds needed to remodel the old phone booths are going to be about 200 million USD. All the 10,000 booths will be spread all over the five boroughs of New York.
- Hand transplants offered in Great Britain
Leeds General Infirmary in Great Britain is the first place in the country to offer hand transplants to its patients. When these surgeries are successful, the replaced limb looks and functions similar to the normal one. Not only that, but the patients also regain strength in their arms and are capable of performing multiple actions using them.
The replaced hand can sense its surroundings, is warm when touched and can even heal itself in case it is injured. People in need of this surgery go through a training procedure; right now, this medical intervention is opened for a few persons each year.
- Medical app for the refugees
Refugees that need medical care in Europe can use a special app that has been created for their needs. The app is called ClinicFinder and was created by the Doctors of the World charity organization.
The app is already available in Arabic, English, Farsi and French, and can help the refugees get the free medical care that they might need. ClinicFinder makes use of the cell phone’s GPS to locate the closest free clinic that has joined this program. Right now the app provides info about 73 clinics that are located in 16 countries.