#digital-signage

#digital-signage

Bork!Bork!Bork! Just picture it. You're at a Swiss train station, looking for information on your connecting line. You peer up at the platform sign hoping to find out how long you'll be waiting and whether you're standing in the right place. But instead of helpful info, you see "* Installation log files are stored in /tmp." Gee, thanks a lot!

According to an eagle-eyed Register reader, the screen normally shows the next few stops, but now it is only displaying a baleful blue screen and a warning that Windows is very unhappy about something. "Your PC/Device needs to be repaired" is not the message a bus's passengers expect to see. The display on the bus is quite a bit more up to date, with a recovery screen that looks like something thrown up by Windows 10.

In this case, the victim is one of the digital advertising screens so beloved of public spaces these days. Rather than having a human paste up posters regularly, these things allow seamless content updates to delight passing travelers until, of course, the bork fairy pays a visit. This example of the fairy's evil work can be found at one of the station's entrances and is both an example of an unhappy update and the infamous Progress Bar of Lies.