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The Tech Building Blocks of City 2.0
CWmike writes "Sci-Fi writers call it Utopia, the glorious City of the Future. But short of downtown atriums being guarded by invisible walls and flying cars, City 2.0 is not as far off as you may think, writes John Brandon. Ubiquitous wireless networks are already available in Baltimore and Minneapolis, Thomson Reuters has sustainable data centers that sell power back to the local utility, the smart energy grid is well on its way, and city-provided social networks are common. While the concept of City 2.0 is monumental, these key technology advancements are already helping pave the road to the next-generation city. The next steps toward the city of tomorrow are all about integrating these services cohesively, making them widely available across the entire metropolis and managing the services more efficiently. 'The reality is that the city of the future will likely have many aspects of a contained and managed ecosystem,' says analyst Rob Enderle."
Imagine it. a quarter million devices connecting to your wireless "cloud".
None of which were spec'ed or validated by you or your group.
Tech support nightmare. Not to mention maintaining all the access points.
This is not "Utopia". This is WiFi. A means of connecting wireless devices (most of them) to services (most of the time).
Like all the cities of the past, media was not high on the list of necessities. In fact, it wasn't on the list because te technology didn't exist. And media won't be high on the list in the future, either.
To quote Brecht:
You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching that's where it begins.
You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn for once the way world is run
Whatever words you twist or lies you tell
FOOD is the first thing - morals follow on.
So first make sure that those
Who are now starving
Get proper helpings when we all start carving!
What keeps mankind alive?
WHAT KEEPS MANKIND ALIVE?
The fact that millions
Are daily tortured stifled punished silenced and oppressed.
Mankind can keep alive
Thanks to its brilliance
In keeping its humanity repressed.
And for once you must try not to shirk the facts:
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
The average city of 2050 will more resemble Calcutta than Dubai.
Word.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Of course it can be done with proprietary gear. That's what the proxy or bridge patterns are for: commonize the interfaces so that Fred's Electric Controllers and Barney's Electric Controllers both have a common ElectricController interface.
Retail did that 15 years ago with the Unified POS device standards. Every barcode scanner out there has a different interface: different commands to turn it on and off, different electrical requirements, etc., but every scanner ultimately does the same task - it reads a barcode. So 15 years ago the retail industry said "we're sick of this" and developed a de facto standard that became UPOS. All a vendor has to do is wrap their device driver in a little proxy layer so it meets the common UPOS interface standard, and any cash register can use it (yes, UPOS today is limited to Windows and Java implementations.)
It doesn't matter if it's a Microsoft WindowsCE electric controller or an Open Source GNU electric controller. As long as the cities arrive at a common interface spec for what a core electric controller does, this can work.
John
I live in Minneapolis and our city wide wifi causes more problems than it solves. Once you get into the grid area reception to any access point other than the city wifi is poor. US Wireless ensured that their signals on all three non-overlapping channels are stronger anywhere inside the grid than any other source. That means Joe Bob running a personal wifi out of his home will have poorer reception than if this city wide wifi didn't exist. Oh and the wifi is both not free(actually rather expensive) and low bandwidth. I think that a city wide wireless network can have positive benefits, but I believe it needs to be better designed to not dance around fcc rules of broadcasting radio signals in a spectrum that is designed for general public use. My best suggestion would be to use a radio spectrum that had decent material penetration, one that is licensed by the FCC so no one else can use it, and uses a relatively cheap to manufacture radio in a number of general purpose packages. If we are going to use tax dollars to put together metro wireless internet grids why not simply design a technology around just that purpose. Of course I live inside a perfect world so take what I say with a grain of salt.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
1: Walkable cities; http://www.newurbanism.org/
Everything I need should be no more than 10 minutes walk. Why should I have to get in a car/bus/train to get the stuff I want. East Kilbride, Cumbernauld ... disasters.
2: PRT: http://www.atsltd.co.uk/media/
Solves much of the traffic and logistic problems for those areas you can't walk to.
3: Reform of the monetary system; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxdPIOUTd2k
Lending money into existence is the cause of a lot of our existing problems.
Don't hold your breath on any of it.
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