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Google Launches Sidewalk Labs To Develop Smart Cities Tech

Posted by samzenpus on from the living-better dept.

dkatana writes: Google wants to join the Smart Cities movement with the launch of a new start-up, "Sidewalk Labs", to develop technologies for cities, including IoT and mobility solutions. Larry Page and Dan Doctoroff describe Sidewalk Labs as an "urban innovation company", geared to developing new technologies to improve city living by reducing pollution, streamlining public transportation, and effectively managing energy use. The company wants to create its own technology and invest in other public and private initiatives. Dan Doctoroff was New York City's Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding during the Bloomberg administration.

38 comments

  1. D-Cell Powered cell phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just make all Android phones D-Cell Powered and have D-Cell kiosks and trash cans placed in many places. Also Google Buys Energizer. Instant Profit.

  2. Content free article by justthinkit · · Score: 1

    How does this make it to the main page?

    --
    I come here for the love
    1. Re:Content free article by jamshidsangi · · Score: 1

      I was thinking the same thing!!

    2. Re:Content free article by cayenne8 · · Score: 2
      Hey, let them have it.

      Personally, I don't wanna live cramped up to everyone else and sharing walls with others.

      I prefer to have a decent house, a yard where I can do things....backyard for a smoker, grill, crawfish boils, etc.

      You can do all you want to make the urban life more palatable to those who choose it, but I prefer to have my space, and be able to come and go door-to-door when I please on MY schedule and not on the local bus schedule.

      I like my neighbors, but I like to have my own personal space away from them too.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    3. Re:Content free article by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Then have your own space, and stop complaining about people talking about living in a city. Problem solved.

  3. Advantages of living in a small town by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    We don't get any of this crap.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    1. Re:Advantages of living in a small town by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But logic left this discussion a very long time ago.

      How very meta of you.

    2. Re:Advantages of living in a small town by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But logic left this discussion a very long time ago.

      How very meta of you.

      Great! Since you seem to think my logic is unsound, you will demonstrate its failings for us by naming a single successful, low-crime majority-black area that has no local warlords and no "thug gangsta" culture destroying its own people. That would make me shut up, fast. Anytime you want to name such an area, that time would be great. Or you can find the courage to admit there are no such areas. The choice is yours, but I can promise you this - cheap little drive-by one-liners like that aren't going to change anything. I am willing to acquiesce to a superior reasoning. I just need to see one first. On this topic you never see that. All you see is "oh you don't think the way we do, you terrible horrible person you, we have to hate you now". It's a religion, complete with its own heretics, admit it.

    3. Re:Advantages of living in a small town by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Small towns have fewer negros so they don't have the crime problems

      What was the last time you were in a small town?

      http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

      http://encompass.eku.edu/cgi/v...

      https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/C...

      http://www.csg.org/knowledgece...

      http://www.gainesville.com/art...

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Advantages of living in a small town by afgam28 · · Score: 2

      Great! Since you seem to think my logic is unsound, you will demonstrate its failings for us by naming a single successful, low-crime majority-black area that has no local warlords and no "thug gangsta" culture destroying its own people. That would make me shut up, fast.

      5 seconds of Googling came up with this: http://atlantablackstar.com/20...

    5. Re: Advantages of living in a small town by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We will hunt you down. You know that we will eventually find you.

    6. Re:Advantages of living in a small town by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life in this AC! I mean, you claimed to have a point based on experience not prejudice. Then you asked him to name one, and he named one. Now your response is to prove to everyone how prejudiced you are. I'll bet you still think you won...

  4. LSD and Meth Labs By Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Having failed at Search, Database, Hardware, Software, Programming, Android Der Schmidt orders a course change: Crystal Blue Persuasion.

    Google is now dipping into street-corner LSD and Meth "Labs" to raise a few billion dollars for Der Schmidt.

    Shitty Schmidty does it again.

    Ha ha

  5. Another Future Abandoned Technology by jabberw0k · · Score: 3, Funny

    Google seems to excel at Embrace, Extend, Evaporate.

    1. Re:Another Future Abandoned Technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      while google does do this, they invented a data template for public transit systems to collect all of the different bus schedules and make them searchable and on maps.

      as a side note, this urbanization project won't work in Albuquerque, NM

    2. Re:Another Future Abandoned Technology by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      They also tend to show up very late to the game and then wonder why they're not winning.

    3. Re:Another Future Abandoned Technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Such as the cell phone market? Search? E-mail? Yeah, you're right.

    4. Re:Another Future Abandoned Technology by lexman098 · · Score: 1

      Better than showing up first to the game and wondering why you're not winning. You can probably guess which company I'm referring to.

    5. Re:Another Future Abandoned Technology by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Apart from all those products which changed the way the world works, yeah - they've done fuck all! The feckless bastards! I'll go google a better search eng... wait.

  6. Yeah Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... wait until the first smart city goes dark as Google announces it is retiring Sidewalk Labs due to it "not aligning with our core advertising model" in around 2019. Just like every "Labs" project.

  7. Re:The American Dream is DEAD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't worry niggers would come anyways. Here in Europe there are 0 cotton farms, yet niggers come by the thousands these days... We should call them afro-amercian niggers and deport them to the glorious U.S.A.

  8. buzzword bingo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The sad fact is that this is an exercise in meaningless doubletalk, regulatory capture, and misdirection. When a project is actually worth doing it's at least widely discussed in clear terms. The kind of language being used here tells me, "we don't know what we're going to do or how we're going to do it, so we're going to blow smoke and hope it's useful enough in someone's campaign to get us onto the golden corporate/government merry-go-round"

  9. Let them eat cake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe it's just the typical corporate press release with all kinds of sunshine out the ears. But they make it sound like the biggest problem a city dweller faces is a lack of fresh country air and nice green open spaces.

    I mean, I know it's not unique to cities, but what I would really like myself, as a city dweller, is to not have to worry about being robbed and murdered when I walk home from work after dark. And I have some friends who live in a city in a developing country who struggle even to have access to clean water. The point being that there are some hard problems facing cities and a lot of the solutions also have serious downsides.

    It's nice that a real rich person like Larry Page is concerned about such things. But there's a certain element of "Let them eat cake." - that Larry doesn't really understand the severity of the problems.

  10. It's not that hard, really. by LongearedBat · · Score: 1

    To sidewalk, you move the left foot to the left, or the right foot to the right, then the other foot follows. Repeat.

    Don't need a lab to work that out.

    How that's supposed to help the cities in the future? Perhaps because they'll be really crowded with little space to move.

    1. Re:It's not that hard, really. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Don't need a lab to work that out.

      It would probably take a lab to figure out why some people feel entitled to more than 50% of the sidewalk, though, or why they can't figure out that you walk on the same side of the sidewalk on which you would drive, if it were a road and you were a car.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:It's not that hard, really. by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      The sidewalk technology I want to see are automatic tire deflators on cars that park on the sidewalk.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    3. Re:It's not that hard, really. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The sidewalk technology I want to see are automatic tire deflators on cars that park on the sidewalk.

      What, no stepping discs? At least some goddamn moving sidewalks, what year is it? And I don't mean those crap conveyors at the airports.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  11. IoT is key to Smart Cities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One of the key elements of developing Smart solutions is the IoT. Sensors are used in many cities to monitor everything from parking spaces to pollution, traffic, sidewalks, etc.

    I believe Google is launching this "experiment" to try new IoT technologies at city level, and get a piece of the market that IBM, Cisco, Schneider Electric have.

  12. Re:The American Dream is DEAD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't worry niggers would come anyways. Here in Europe there are 0 cotton farms, yet niggers come by the thousands these days... We should call them afro-amercian niggers and SELL them to the glorious U.S.A.

    What? Too soon?

  13. Floyd, how does "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

    * Don't you have ANYTHING BETTER to do than be an online troll? Why don't YOU create something useful that gives people more online speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity (as I have) instead of being a jerk??

    (An easily SHOT DOWN IN FLAMES jerk no less - & it was VERY EASY tearing you up there, stupid!)

    APK

    P.S.=> Oh, that's right - you PROJECT WHY YOU CAN'T IN YOUR "bs registered 'luser'" name here - you can only 'think it' (evidently not that well like a PHB might, & anyone can come up with a 10,000 ft. view idea asshole) but YOU CANNOT DO IT since you don't HAVE what it takes (skill & knowledge)... apk