The Woodlands is a new community of approximately 4,000 people outside Houston, Texas. About 850 of its residents are subscribers to the Woodlands cable TV system. Like several other cable TV systems which are cropping up in communities all over the USA, the one in the Woodlands is a two-way system whereby home viewers can register their reaction to programmes through their channel selector. Each number of the channel selector represents a code announced before the programme begins. The responses are automatically fed into the computer at the cable TV station. But the system in the Woodlands is the only one in the US that has been used for on-the-spot opinion polling. During community meetings, where issues are discussed by local officials and politicians, the audience response is shown on a screen every five or ten minutes at the meeting itself. It is a successful two-way conversation by means of which the public is able to give a prompt response to whatever issues it may agree or disagree with.
The Woodlands cable TV system has also made a breakthrough in obtaining emergency aid services for its subscribers. Each home with the cable is automatically wired to the local fire department, police department, and emergency medical aid unit. These public safety services are obtained through using a standard channel selector designated for the specific emergency. Since the system has been in use there has not been one successful burglary in homes with the cable. The two local insurance carriers have reduced their fees to policy owners with the cable by 25%.
The installation fee for the cable is $300, and there is a monthly service charge of $5. Tocom Industries of Houston is currently the only manufacturer of the computer mechanism used in the Woodlands system. But it seems likely that the idea will be spreading throughout the US; and that the benefits more than justify the cost.
I invented the cash dispenser at the time of the Suez crisis but never thought of it as a banking tool, I thought of it for promoting democracy. It asks you objective background questions relevant to the referendum decision and the more you get right, the more your vote is worth. In Ireland it would bypass the social problem of one man one vote for a representative, and in all situations where a gerrymandered democratic majority is the objective. The Pope might as well end his opposition to birth control as a family of eight ignorant catholics could be out-voted by one educated atheist. Nothing would so motivate people to learn as the certainty that knowledge is power, and nothing is easier than to find out than whether people really know, using multiple choice questions.