These 6 technologies are redefining the ‘smart city’
Rather than betting on VR headsets or other currently popular interfaces, communities that invest in six underlying capabilities are best positioned for the longer term:
In the popular imagination, small towns are where “everybody knows your name,” sharing goods and spaces without a second thought. The urban bike rack may seem like the polar opposite, yet programs like Citi Bike entrust strangers to pick up objects worth hundreds of dollars and drop them off across town. Such systems recognize individuals and extend privileges accordingly, using technology from biometrics to token-based authentication to enable the sharing economy. If sharing one’s home is an expression of faith in fellow citizens, Airbnb is an early example of how technology expands circles of trust, bringing aspects of small communities to even the largest cities.
Mobile phones with ubiquitous GPS have nearly rendered the feeling of being lost obsolete, yet the built environment is only beginning to understand where people want to go. While autonomous vehicles dominate headlines, simply understanding people’s locations and desires offers both a big economic and social payoff. Ridesharing services like Via blur the distinction between private and public transportation, effectively creating “on-demand buses.” Similarly, by analyzing millions of data points from Amsterdam to Singapore, the MIT Senseable City Lab estimates that intelligently matching riders could reduce the total number of taxi trips by as much as 40 percent.
Sensors are hidden but ubiquitous components of the urban landscape. Beyond piecemeal installations, communities are recognizing the benefits of a holistic approach. The Array of Things project is deploying environmental sensors across Chicago, aiming to be a “fitness tracker” that captures and analyzes data impacting quality of life, including air quality, climate and noise pollution. New York City’s recently announced Neighborhood Innovation Labs take this a step further, partnering with communities, government, technologists and educators to solve locally-identified challenges, starting in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
