- Should smart cities be built from scratch?
These laboratory custom built towns are looking into the future. The pop up cities include Songdo in South Korea that is a pre planned smart city. Masdar City in Abu Dhabi is an oasis that recycles 80% of it’s water and inhabits a few thousand residents. Fujiasawa in Japan has smart street lights with cameras. Sponsored by Panasonic the city as of now has a 1000 homes. - LAPD’s data mining program has CIA roots – Crime rates have seen a decline. Data driven policing by the LAPD was explained by Scott Kennedy. Big data reading is changing the force of LAPD. This technology scans license plates of cars on the road. A data mining system called ‘Palantir’ has each and every vehicle owner of the city in its system. Residents feel that their civil liberties are being violated but the question is to choose between private rights and public safety.
- Smart garbage: The future of stink – 55 billion dollars are spent each year to manage waste. A smart trash can in Philadelphia has solar and wireless technology as well as trash compaction. Overall the time effort and money spent on collection crews is saved. The trash can will show profits in 5 years.
- Giant wind turbines vs a tiny bird- The London Array is the largest off shore wind farm that powers half a million homes. Due to the growing population and growing need for energy this wind farm is the road to sustainability. However construction was halted to protect a rare breed of bird. There would be more hurdles such as this one in the future but we hope they will be dealt with effectively.
- Secrets behind this super-green building- Our cities are not sustainable, specially the buildings. However a building in Seattle based on green technology includes all the sustainability technologies such as solar panels and collection of rain water. Living Building Certification organises itself by open and closing its windows according to weather and by even including advanced composting toilets.
- San Diego’s billion-dollar water bet- California is experiencing its worst drought in history. Access to fresh water is crucial thus Southern California has built a desalination plant that filters out the salts that is discharged back into the ocean. A lot of energy is used for such plants to function but 46% less energy is used in this particular one. Negative affects include the brine discharge harming aquatic and marine life.
- Can surveillance make life easier?- New recognition technology monitors 60% of New York commuters that travel by foot or public transport. ‘Placemeter’ is a startup that uses computer vision algorithms to calculate 10 million people a day in public spaces as well as people inside buildings. This startup is promising potential for data intergration with apps. As of right now it is working for 25% of the city but soon they hope to even start classifying gender and age of the residents.
- The city of tomorrow is already here- The challenges of the 21st century includes high cost of energy, crime, air pollution and much more. However with real innovation the city of tomorrow can look like England with wind energy is powering its homes or LAPD solving crimes in the state or like Seattle’s green building. The challenge only grows bigger. With green houses gases increased by 25%, trash being doubled and the increasing demand for water and energy. Smart devices and technology can help solve the number of commuters traveling to work as well of overflowing trash in public spaces.
- Inside the tallest building in the world- Burj khalifa of Dubai with the highest swimming pool of the world is efficient and profitable. Costing a total of 1.5 billion dollars to be built the building has an advanced mechanical electrical system to keep it cool with 13000 tons of ice. The base of the building is defined to shift in the event of an earthquake and among other achievements the elevator creates its own power and takes 60 seconds to reach the observation deck. Condensation that occurs on the skin of the building is collected and used for other purposes.
- Is this the greenest city in the world?- Masdar city, outside of Abu Dhabi has magnetically controlled cars and solar panels. The city is socially and economically sustainable as well as well as reduces water and energy consumption. The wind tower built in a traditional Arabic design is used to cool and is also powered by MIT.
- City of the future, museum of the past- The newest city of Modern Doha is situated across its the past. Connections between the two are being built at the Museum of Islamic art. The city is standing on it’s own island so that no building over shadows it. The museum has art collected from 3 different continents and each piece of art is analysed with newest technology.
- The genius evolution of the park bench- Benchie from Boston was invented with the help of the MIT media lab. It is a connected solar powered charger park bench and the first step into smart urban furniture that connects us to the city. Its features include a waterproof plug and connection to the internet or “cloud”.
Reflection- After watching the various videos on inventive design and technology I have learnt that advanced technology is the answer to many but not all of our problems. Some of these videos showcase life changing devices and systems that can change the world and solve environmental as well as socio-economic problems. Inventions such as these are impressive and should be credited, specially those that are sustainable and made looking at the needs and urgencies of our future generations.
