Slashdot Mirror
Cities Wasting Millions of Taxpayer's Money In Failed IoT Pilots
dkatana writes: Two years ago at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress, Antoni Vives, then Barcelona's second deputy mayor, said he refused to have more technology pilots in the city: "I hate pilots, if anyone of you [technology companies] comes to me selling a pilot, just get away, I don't want to see you." He added, "I am fed up with the streets full of devices. It is a waste of time, a waste of money, and doesn't deliver anything; it is just for the sake of selling something to the press and it does not work."
Barcelona is already a leading city in the use of IoT and, according to Fortune, "The most wired city in the world". Over the past 10 years, the city has experienced a surge in the number of sensors, data collection devices and automation and has become "a showcase for the smart metropolis of the future". Over the past few years technology companies have sold pilot programs costing millions of dollars to cities all over the world, claiming it will enhance their "Smart City" rating. Unfortunately, after the initial buzz, many of those pilots never get beyond the evaluation stage and are abandoned because the cities cannot afford them in the first place.
Barcelona is already a leading city in the use of IoT and, according to Fortune, "The most wired city in the world". Over the past 10 years, the city has experienced a surge in the number of sensors, data collection devices and automation and has become "a showcase for the smart metropolis of the future". Over the past few years technology companies have sold pilot programs costing millions of dollars to cities all over the world, claiming it will enhance their "Smart City" rating. Unfortunately, after the initial buzz, many of those pilots never get beyond the evaluation stage and are abandoned because the cities cannot afford them in the first place.
The maintenance/support/licensing costs of a given gizmo is probably roughly the same regardless of the cost or size of the physical box*. The software is becoming the bottleneck.
The physical size and/or hardware costs seem to get too much attention. A system is a system. Size does NOT matter (that much).
* Call it "Tablizer's Law" if it's not already taken by another pundit.
Table-ized A.I.
Internet of Things isn't even a thing, it's wishful thinking, and a bunch of random crap "visionaries" with no business plan are all pushing as the Next Big Thing.
It's marketing hype by people trying to cash in, but who otherwise have no idea what it's good for.
It's snake oil, nothing more. Getting fast talked into spending money on pilot projects to help some company achieve their goal of "monetizing your synergies while holistically marketing the awesomeness of IoT to allow you to improve your "'Smart City Rating' means you've been hoodwinked.
If it's so awesome and revolutionary, you should be paying the city to promote your product.
Instead it's just a bunch of bullshit and lies about how unfinished tech with no actual value is going to revolutionize the world.
Every idiot who says "Yarg, teh internet of things" should get swiftly smacked in the head. Because other than they want a piece of the action, not a single one of them can tell you what it is and why you actually want it.
Getting suckered into spending public money to allow some idiot to let you help him figure out what this crap is for is a sure sign you're not doing enough due diligence.
I'm glad to see people like this starting to say "go away and leave us alone". Because there's nothing there yet, just some speculative crap.
It's a solution in search of a problem, and a bunch of people trying to get other people help them figure out the business plan and what this stuff is for.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Always throwing me off planes. I'M NOT DRUNK, I'M FINE!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I've been trying to keep my job skills fresh so I can keep up with the "next big thing". But I'll be damned if I can figure out what the hell IoT really is and why it's taking off. Yes, I know it's connecting things to the internet. But to what end?
It will allow Apple, Microsoft, Google, the US Government, and others to turn every device in your home into a governance/surveillance device. It won't just be your TV watching you a la 1984, it will be your thermostat, your keyboard, your couch, your bedside lamp, hell, not just your bed but your baby's crib and the baby's rattle.
That is why they are so keen on the "Internet of Things." What? You thought it was to benefit you? Really? Then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I think he should say, if you want the city to do a pilot that is great. You will cover all the costs. No? Well, I guess you have little confidence in your product then.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
What? You thought it was to benefit you? Really? Then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
Well, I knew that couldn't be true since that's what the marketing literature was pushing. I just didn't (and really, still don't) know what it really is for.
It's more of a Shelbyville idea anyway.
Okay, I know of at least one example. Red lights and traffic signs. In ye old days, each was manually set and timed on the spot.
However, by networking them and sometimes adding extra sensors, that allows you to have a more responsive traffic system, thus reducing delays and increasing capacity, and improving ability to route around damage.
By providing an interface to the public web, that enables devices like traffic aware GPS and eventually self-driving cars to help assist in 'routing around damage/congestion', again, improving the situation.
That being said, 'Internet of Things' shares a lot in common with the .com boom. Lots of 'neat ideas', not nearly as many sound business plans that even went as far as 'Sell advertising' - IE Google. 'Sell things, especially niche items that might be hard to find in local stores*' - Amazon. Sell games without the need to keep track of discs - Steam. Etc...
*Consider their original model of book selling - Finding a book in a bookstore, or even the local grocery store, is easy. Finding a *specific* book is harder, and ordering through your local bookstore is something of a pain, and yes, I did it before Amazon.
I don't read AC A human right
Cities should charge sports teams for the right to be known as the City's X, not the other way around.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It was an R&D project. Sometimes you get lucky and invent the Internet and change the world; sometimes you merely invent bloated toys. Can't win them all. Pioneers don't always make it across.
-Al Gorre
Table-ized A.I.
My old city was planning a citywide Wifi project. I suspect that this will be shot in the face by the local telcos but assuming it did go ahead I begged them not to pooch it with things like an "I agree page" it is very hard for me to get an arduino to "agree" thus they will have old yeller'd their IoT from day one if they put in a "I agree" page.
I suggested various workarounds if they were forced to put in an I Agree Page by people like the mayor who probably wanted his picture on the I Agree page "Welcoming" (polishing his ego) the users.
But the last thing I would want is the city trying to actually build their own IoT in some grandiose way that is certain to fail. Especially if they were thinking that this IoT was going to somehow fund the network itself. Cities should be rushing to get city wide Wifi as this could very well cause local companies to be first to the post when it comes to cool new IoT technologies. I have a long list of things that I could build with a citywide wifi. Bike Lojack systems. Drones that I can control from anywhere. Taxi dispatch systems. Car GPS for security.
Not to mention things like alarm systems that don't need to have stupid monthly fees, etc. These are things that could end up saving the taxpayers more money than the system would cost. But only if it is done simply and done right. The city is good at things like infrastructure. The city is terrible at things like R&D.
I liken the "I agree" thing being like a car that wouldn't pull onto the road unless you went through a pile of menus to get to an I Agree to use the roads properly page. Then you could keep going. One other thing with the I Agree pages is that often instead of using fairly commodity networking gear it requires that you hire some two bit company that specializes in crappy little hotel networks. These networks are often shoddy affairs where the packet inspection and whatnot in dealing with all the user management vastly increases the costs while killing the capacity.
But one of the great advantages for a tiny few people within the city when dealing with these crappy little companies..... kickbacks.
I'd propose a cheap pilot for cities:
A cheap plastic label with a 3d barcode on every streetlamp that I can scan with my cellphone and click:
Light broken
Lamp damaged (accident etc)
Lamp is a danger (hanging over street etc)
Ditto for trash-cans, bus-stops, etc
Ditto for street name signs:
pothole
Lots and lots of potholes
crack-house
The point of a pilot is to see if an idea is worth implementing, cost scaling, etc. More money could have been wasted if there were not any pilots, but just implementation.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
There goes my plan to sell them my system that turns homeless people into wifi-hotspots. At least they already payed for the tweeting trash-cans.
Because the city is paying to find out if the idea is viable, rather than the company that wants to sell it.
Since DefCon, all I can think when I see IOT is "Internet of Hackable Things." My mind translates it to that automatically. The devices are just so easy (relatively speaking) to hack.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That's locally responsive though, not system responsive. For example, where I live there are roads where if the lights were to cooperate ALL directions of traffic could sail through without stopping.
As is, all too often all their responsiveness(they're camera triggered) does is force ALL cars to stop at the light. I see it all the time. Cars pull up and stop on the side street, while the highway is completely clear. Then the highway goes red just as cars are approaching(from the last red light), to let the cars that could have sailed through a minute earlier go.
It could be a matter of simply placing cameras further out, but there you're again getting to the point that networking makes more sense.
As for hooking your toaster up to the internet, I refer you back to the 'no business plan' part of my post.
I don't read AC A human right
In which case they've already gotten millions/billions to develop the system, but it's still nothing compared to what deployment in an actual city would cost.
Though in that case it can become something of a bidding process - a city that promises to provide land and at least some funding is going to have more 'skin' in the game, likely making the permitting process easier. So they'll be picked first.
I don't read AC A human right
Actually the leisure society is not that difficult to achieve and maintain. It's just a few (not to many) decades behind the modern society that people seem to want.
Why should municipalities be paying for these "pilots?" They're really beta-testers of new stuff. The companies should be paying for the beta test, not the taxpayers. This applies to all kinds of things, not just IoT, although I know /. commenters really like to bitch about IoT.
In my municipality, the corrupt mayoral administration wants to do waste-to-energy. Okay, great, the problem is that they want to be a beta-test for an entirely new technology - a method of fermenting municipal solid waste into biofuel. The company, Anaergia, has plants in Europe that convert cow poop, human poop, and food waste into fertilizer and some fuel, but that's very, very different than regular trash. Same bullshit. Whether it's IoT or any other domain, municipalities shouldn't be footing the bill and the risk to beta test a for-profit company's technology.
Let me Google that for you
because you failed to negotiate proper terms.
If you are paying them to make you the guinea pig, you are an exceedingly stupid guinea pig.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Christoph Mertz, senior project scientist in CMU's Robotics Institute, is developing a computer program to detect potholes, cracks and other irregularities in roads. Mounted on the windshield of a car, a camera captures images of the street and measures the severity of potholes and cracks. Read more: http://triblive.com/news/alleg... Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook