The image is actually part of National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009—one of 25 examples collected by Boston.com. Check out the entries if you want a little eye candy to tide you over until dinner. [NatGeo via Boston]

It's part of a test program on the L line, where they installed boards telling people when the next train would arrive last year. This is just the next step. If it goes well, presumably, they'll expand it to other lines as well. Like the Q! Bring it to the Q, MTA! Please! [Gothamist; pic via Kate Heffernan]

The pictured subway station is located on North Avenue in Chicago, next to a future Apple store location. While Apple's stipulation that the subway station renovations be completed by September 30, 2010 gives us a bit of a hunch as to when the store might open, it still remains a mystery exactly why the company is pouring so much money into prettying up a corner of Chicago. According to the agreement they're not getting very much out of it:

[I]n exchange for the improvements the CTA will lease the bus turnaround to Apple at no cost for 10 years, with options on four, five-year extensions. The CTA will also give Apple "first rights of refusal" for naming the station and placing advertising within the station, if the CTA later decides to offer those rights.

Alright, and Apple intends on making that bus turnaround into a "landscaped public park," so there's no profit to be found there and the "first rights of refusal" are worthless if the CTA never actually decides to offer any of those advertising options and rights. It almost seems as if Apple's doing this for the warm fuzzy feeling that comes out of doing something incredibly wonderful for a city's development. I'm proud of you, Apple, but I still think Bill Gates is cooler for trying to cure malaria with candy. [ifoAppleStore via Mac Rumors]

At first I wanted to make fun of him, but he told me that he always has his Sharp calculator in his pocket for work and such since he can't stand the one on his BlackBerry Curve. It is true the calculator on the Curve kinda sucks, though the iPhone's isn't enough to make me switch. Granted I don't use the calculator for much—not, apparently, nearly as much as this guy.

The Wall Street Journal is all over a different type of calculator dilemma, how TI's newest $135 graphing TI-Nspire is overkill for some and many students prefer older graphing models or just iPhone apps. Are you with this guy? Can nothing replace the old-school calculator? Or do you think he's just a holdout, and calculators are destined to melt away entirely into cellphone firmware, end of story?

Metro Paris Subway 3.0 has been updated to help commuters find POIs using a live video mode. Now that the floodgates are open, how long will we have to wait for Twitter-based reality augmentation? I'm sure it's just around the corner (Sigh...). [MacNN]

Sitting tight together, head to head, one was frantically rubbing her thumb against the Gameboy D-pad, while the other clicked the buttons. They were laughing, playing constantly, and actually having loads all fun all the way to Manhattan. I don't know what game they were playing, but it was a really sweet moment to see two people enjoying themselves in such a silly and careless way.

Just pick the line, your stop, and whether you're going uptown or downtown. (Yes, it works offline, since there's no AT&T in the subway, or anywhere in NYC it seems at times.) It shows which subway car is closest to which exit. Like say if you're going to Union Square and want to get off at the 16th St. end, not 14th by the carcass of the Virgin Megastore. Used every time you're on the subway for a year, the hour of time you save not wandering from one end of the subway station to another to get out where you need to easily adds up to $2.

Maybe best of all, it's available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and even Kindle. [Exit Strategy NYC via superfem!]

AcrossAir, the makers of the app, claim it as one of the first "augmented reality" apps for the iPhone, meaning it adds digital signs to a real-time video. It only supports the London Underground for now, and is currently being approved by Apple, but we could definitely see this coming in handy for most any major city. Can we humbly request a version for Chicago, city of the miles-apart subway stations? We'll let you know when it's eventually approved and released into the App Store. [AcrossAir]

The NYC Metro Cuff is an " über urban matte metal cuff" capable of guiding you a la treasure map through NYC's intricate train system. No one will take you for a tourist as you compulsively check your "watch," studying the embossed map fervently while inching away from yet another passenger who dually loves garlic and despises deodorant. Order yours for $25 shipped. [design hype via Gearfuse]

The errant text message also sent dozens of passengers to the hospital and closed down one of the busier sections of the Green Line at the Government Center and Park Street stops. The stops have since reopened, and criminal charges are all but set to be filed against the operator, Aiden Quinn, 24, of Attleboro, Mass. Quinn actually admitted to first responders that he was texting his girlfriend at the time of the crash because she wouldn't answer his initial call (which he also made, presumably, while driving a packed subway train).

In related news, Verizon is on board with a general ban on texting while driving, and Boston just instituted one of those "you mean it wasn't in place already?!" bans on cellphones for all T operators. The ban does not apply to popcorn. [AP, NYT, Channel 5 Boston]

[Subivor, Thanks Dave!]

Three percent of all the electronic components in the world become obsolete every month. When you imagine all the shit coming out of China, it's pretty staggering. The problem is actually worse for the military, which spends about $10 billion a year on keeping up obsolete electronics parts. Ironically it's because they've switched to using off-the-shelf consumer electronics for 90 percent of their components—with a much shorter service life, four years at best—rather than "military-spec" gear, which was designed to hang around for a decade or more.

IEEE Spectrum lists a couple of egregious examples: The B-2 Spirit, one of Jesus' favorite planes, started flying in 1989, and by 1996, lots of its electronic components were obsolete. And in the Navy's new sonar system, 70 percent of the parts were obsolete when they started installing it.

Finding the parts isn't just difficult, it's expensive as hell, so the cost of maintaining obsolete but very necessary wares basically keeps you from upgrading. In the NYC subway case, instead of moving to a new, modern computerized system that would probably be cheaper in the long run, the Metropolitan Transit Authority has had to focus its limited budget on maintaining the frail, antediluvian network, trapping New Yorkers into an transit system light years behind, say, Japan's. (There have been stories in the recent past about the subway's upgrades, but they have mainly been superficial.)

Not all of you depend on the subway, or fly B-2 bombers, so here's a closer to home example: Windows vs. OS X. The latter is lighter, faster and springier, because it dumped all of the Classic OS's code. A fresh start, with a transition eased by the Classic emulation scheme. Windows Vista, on the other hand, is burdened by 20 years of legacy code, code that it could be argued is essentially obsolete. So we pay the price with a bloated operating system that struggles under its own massive girth. Dumping all that dead weight for Windows 7 and starting fresh—while painful—would be the best thing Microsoft could do. But it's not that easy, or they'd have done it, obviously. Maybe. You got any better examples of painful obsolescence? [IEEE Spectrum, NYT]

The portable subway strap is designed to show female passengers that your hands are occupied —thereby reducing your chances of being falsely accused of groping. Apparently, the 525 yen ($5) product has proven quite popular with commuters. Although the train above seems to have a much more awkward situation brewing. [Product Page via Pink Tentacle]

"In the immediate aftermath of an incident, our employees need the full attention of our customers to ensure the fastest and safest communication of information and potential evacuation... we also exercise extreme caution in limiting use of any electronic device that could potentially serve as an accidental detonator during such an incident."

The scheme is expected to be completed within the next four years, and though we do not want to be accused of scare mongering, the facts are these: everyone has got by OK up until now, and in light of potential safety issues, is the initiative really necessary? What do you guys think, time to invest in one of these? [Daily News via Textually]

Credit Card Underground Maps [Firebox]

Undersound [via Gizmowatch via Coin-Op]

The Mini is a mere $9.95. We, on the other hand, like to wrap two inches of duct tape on any surface we touch. It takes a while, but it's worth it for the stares and court summonses you get. – John Biggs

Product Page [TranStrap]