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Glasgow To Be UK's First 'Smart City'
CowboyRobot writes "Once the 'Second City' of the British Empire, scrappy Glasgow — whose now-demolished Gorbals was once known for urban grimness on a par with Chicago's South Side or New York's Hell's Kitchen — has the chance for a whole new lease on life as the UK's first 'smart city.' The UK's government has just announced a $38 million (£24 million) grant to fund pilot projects in the city that show how mass deployment of sensors and real-time information can help local government run more efficiently while also boosting the quality of life for its 600,000 citizens. Glasgow won the prize in a competition among 30 British towns and cities for state help in looking at the possible contribution of smart technology."
The west side of Chicago is worse than the south side.
They still believe electric lights are the devils work
"mass deployment of sensors and real-time information can help local government"
Sounds as much like Big Brother as Smart City.
Good news for "the grey place"
Man, Scotland is such a money sink.
but it's still scotland, so the cash will be heroine'd away before anyone gets to rfid / ingress anything useful.
you're winner!!
And this is where integration with existing projects should come first, lest we end up reinventing the wheel. http://www.fixmystreet.com/ http://www.opentraintimes.com/ http://www.openstreetmap.org/ http://www.flightradar24.com/ the 45MB/min MIDAS Gold DATEX traffic information service from http://www.tih.org.uk/ - and many more. And by far not just travel related either, but lets not allow Glasgow to 'create' new apps and datasources that just replicate ideas and services that are already out there.
I hope the administrators of this fund have a good long hard look through http://data.gov.uk/ for inspiration and partners to work with, and that we as users and techs can help push them to make the right choices.
I've already emailed a few relevant parties. Have you?
Sure, as long as nothing's voice-activated...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
For it's going roond and roond!
Step 1) Smart glasses for pubs with accelerometers and conductive bases. When a sudden movement is detected, a taser-like shock is immediately administered through the base. That should reduce the number of glassings each year.
They may however have to change the name of the city to Fistgow as the locals pick up on it.
This is yet another example of politicians throwing money at technology to try and solve problems of policy and administration. It's a bit like buying a new TV to cure a broken leg. Nothing but a distraction.
"You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead!" - Stan Laurel
...is that despite all the furious roars of "1984!" and "Big Brother!", the UK's idea of a Smart City is probably just following in the footsteps of things US cities have been implementing for the past decade.
We went on a short self-guided car tour of Scotland this summer and were blown away at the number of cameras on the roadway. Many of the main roads had one or more speed camera covering all lanes of traffic every mile for tens of miles. I had no intention of doing any wrong, but all the 'invasion of privacy' bells were going off in my head.
I never got feelings like the system was going to be abused in any type of near term scenario, but I couldn't help but think how easy it would be for a Stalin type leader to use that envoronment to make inconvenient people disappear. In many places it is technically legal (*not that it happens*) for a police officer to bring you to jail for speeding or neglecting a turn signal during a lane change. I frequently hear the average citizen of the US commits one felony a day by being normal.
when it gets the Frankie Boyle seal of approval.
"Smart" is another overloaded buzz word that works well for marketing but is too vague to use to describe a city. Did you really mean to use more descriptive word such as efficient, effective, informative, or economical?
new letter/phrase: hex-u means "www"
What, are the rest of the cities dumb?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Glasgow ranks (and always has) somewhere below Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool at the very least in terms of UK cities (importance economically, culturally, politically). It may be Scotland's biggest, but it's probably not even in the UK's top 5.
Your "Stalin type leader" is pretty well in place already. And he's going to have to derive new revenue streams soon to bribe the electorate pending the Independence Referendum. I can see Glasgow sprouting a huge crop of Box Junction cameras, they provide a most useful "ker-ching" factor!
In one of Iain Banks novels (Scottish life, not Culture) a character was described as a "bumptious cunt"; its a prety good description for La Salmond, though words like "egregious" and "petty" are good too.
They could repay the whole $34 million (and then some) by making it controllable online. It would be like a reverse Westworld. Streetlights would never stop blinking, driving would be hazardous, and they could add other stuff like Yul Brynner to interact with citizens.
Year 1: IBM gives government small amount of money to make politicians look good. .....
Year 2: Jointly funded trial and lots of positive PR for everyone
Year 3: Government gives IBM huge amount of money and outsources government services to them.
10 years later in shock news it is revealed that this was a huge waste of money, and services are of poor quality but IBM cannot be replaced because the government has signed contracts which give IBM total ownership of the city
Perhaps this Smart City technology can shed light on the Glasgow Effect:
Source
-kgj
Last time I was in Glasgow I got stopped for drinking on the street (it was a fair cop), as the coppers were leaving one of them said to me, "Just remember, yea cannae drink in the street, yea cannae piss in the street, and yea cannae shit in the street". ;)
You stay classy Glasgow
Won't you have to remove all the wedgies to make it so?
At least they'll know if Wellington loses his hat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_Statue,_Glasgow
(Sometimes he has a bottle of whiskey in his arms too, so presumably they could monitor his alcohol intake too, and make sure he's not drunk in charge of a statue horse).