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."
"mass deployment of sensors and real-time information can help local government"
Sounds as much like Big Brother as Smart City.
Yes, such a money sink that the loony right wing government in the UK is *desperate* to stop Scotland becoming independant, and keeping all the wealth up here.
Sorry Maggie^WTony^WDavid, we're keeping the oil, and we're keeping the tax revenue. You'll have to pay for your own moat-cleaning now.
I would have thought that "the grey place" would be Aberdeen, the Granite City.
Glasgow is known as "the Dear Green Place", and if you look at it on Google Earth you'll see why.
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?
In Scots Gaelic, however, "glas" (ghlas) is grey, so yes, that works.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Yes, but mostly of Scottish money. The value of single malt whisky at storage in the country at any given time far exceeds the highest ever amount of gold held by the bank of England. Scotland will be rich in 21 oak matured years, and always has been.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Sure, as long as nothing's voice-activated...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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
I don't think it would take much to convince Scottish voters to stay in the UK. Latest polls show only 23% of Scots want independence.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"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"
If independent, would they use the Euro, the UK Pound, or float their own currency? Of the three options, they would be best integrated with the UK Pound right now, but why would England allow that? Not having an automomous economy defeats the point of being a nation. Joining the Euro Zone or having a native currency would require that they establish their own national credit basis. Doing that in the current ongoing world economic climate would be horrendously difficult. It is likely that a native currency would start with a very poor exchange rate and cause huge disruptions to Scottish economy. The future of the Euro is not secure, so that route also has a lot of risk.
They do have an option to remain in the UK but have more local political control. This is happening all across the UK. It's not as nationalistically sexy as independence, but it is a heck of a lot more practical.
Why is Snark Required?
I'm a courier and I work all sides of Chicago. While I must admit 25th and Washington isn't exactly the first place I would choose to hang out, areas around 51st and western make me way more nervous (and that's not even actually going into the neighborhoods around there).
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Many of the main roads had one or more speed camera covering all lanes of traffic every mile for tens of miles.
Where was that? I can't think of *anywhere* that matches that description, unless you were driving through motorway roadworks which generally has a 40mph speed limit enforced with average speed cameras.
There are a lot of average speed cameras on the A77 in Ayrshire, maybe there? Even then, it's not "a camera every mile", it's about six average speed cameras covering 30-odd miles of extremely dangerous road.