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"The Smart City refuses to go away. In 2013 Adam Greenfield wrote "Against the Smart City" in criticism of the large-scale corporate- and government-led projects in cities such as Masdar, Songdo and Rio ...and their top-down approach." The Urban Technologist says that the Smart City concept is **not** just a technology buzzword. It's here to stay. 
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In the wake of the Volkswagen scandal, we should remotely monitor vehicles’ emissions. Some states already do.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
Op-ed in the New York Times, by Peter M. McClintock, states the case for testing emissions with remote sensing devices where "the rubber hits the road," so to speak... where they actually pollute. This is a good read and thoughtful article from an expert on air quality and emissions inspection programs,
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Low power, big ambitions: France's Sigfox aims to be the backbone for the Internet of Things | ZDNet
'Wireless startup Sigfox has ambitions to go global with its low-energy, low cost Internet of Things tech"
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
According to Machina Research, one of the key prevailing trends in IoT in 2015 has been the increasing interest from telecoms operators in deploying low power wide area (LPWA) networks alongside existing 3G and 4G networks. Sigfox along with Huawei's Cellular IoT and Long Range (LoRa) technology have so far emerged as the front-running technologies.
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“It takes a village” – but when it comes to building smart cities, it takes far more than that.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
Developing smart cities requires strategic partnerships, creative business models, change management, and citizen buy-in. For smart city technology to take hold, governments must incorporate citizens’ perspectives into their strategy. Forrester Research reports that U.S. and UK citizens are equipped to interact with their community and governments through new technology.
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Some utilities don’t have enough water, some have too much, others struggle to get it where it needs to go. Learn how more are turning to sensors and real-time analytics to solve a wide range of problems.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
For municipalities and utilities, this is where the IoT is truly useful. Connecting resources with sensor technology and data analytics delivers gains in efficiency, and new sources of revenue. Read about the discussion on smart water at Smart Cities Week in Washington DC.
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Selon Francis Pisani, une ville intelligente passe, certes, par les données, mais aussi et surtout par la participation de son citoyen.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
En d'autres mots, l'aspect technologique des "smart cities" devrait servir les gens, et non pas l'inverse... Lisez donc!
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New financing options from Property Assessed Clean Energy loans make the solar craze something maybe small or medium businesses should consider. SolarCity thinks so.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
SolarCity is setting its sights on opening the renewable energy market to small and medium businesses in the U.S. PACE financing, lower equipment costs, and working with local or in-house installers, will reduce the risk and cost structure. This is smart!
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The Aragon-based company Flores en la mesa grows and sells fresh edible flowers and crystallized flowers. These unusual products are based on plants that are carefully grown, free from chemicals, intended for human consumption.
"Flores" worked with Libelium to install an automated irrigation system with real time data control, capable of recording and adapting to environmental conditions inside the greenhouse. A variety of sensors, monitor a range of parameters such as pH control, water temperature, and electrical conductivity
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
Smart Agriculture: Libelium sensor technology is deployed by "Flores en la mesa" to study the parameters appropriate for plant growth. The ongoing analysis of sensor data is already working to give the grower new levels of flexibility to experiment with planting and harvesting dates, and general cultivation cycles, for their beautiful edible flower products.
Thierry Evangelista's curator insight,
July 14, 2015 4:16 PM
Un beau cas d'usage de l'Internet des objets appliqué à l'agriculture
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If policy makers and businesses get it right, linking the physical and digital worlds could generate up to $11.1 trillion a year in economic value by 2025. A McKinsey Global Institute article.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
McKinsey has analyzed over 150 use cases to evaluate the impact of the IoT, and to give a view upon which industries are primed to reap the benefits. Factories and cities are in the top tier. Surprising?
(Note: the executive summary and the full report are available for download.)
Richard Platt's curator insight,
June 25, 2015 1:08 PM
Achieving this kind of $4 -$11Trillion impact would require certain conditions to be in place, notably overcoming the technical, organizational, and regulatory hurdles. In particular, companies that use IoT technology will play a critical role in developing the right systems and processes to maximize its value. Among their findings:
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Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
A new report from the Capital City Foundation aims to distil the core elements of New York’s data success and outline a means for them to be adapted for the specific context of London. It describes the measures that would need to be taken by central government, the Mayor of London, London Borough Councils and the wider London public sector to make this possible.
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Libelium, a provider of hardware and APIs for wireless sensor networks, has launched an initiative designed to support technical education focused on the development of the Internet of Things
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Libelium & Cooking Hacks promote IoT developer education with sensor hardware, tutorials, training - to bridge the gap of 4.5 million developers n
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
IoT developer education kits from Libelium and its open hardware division Cooking Hacks give hands-on experience to future developers of the Internet of Things, and Smart Cities.
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In the aftermath of all the destruction and with a city in shock, Christchurch City Council immediately set about devising a comprehensive rebuilding plan. The recovery process provided the council with an opportunity to rebuild the social fabric as well as enhance resilience. In a decision that proved to be hugely successful and beneficial, an extensive engagement with the citizens of Christchurch was launched.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
Christchurch engaged its citizens in city planning and decision-making post earthquake, as soon as the trembling stopped.
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Governments, businesses, and economists have all been caught off guard by the geopolitical shifts that happened with the crash of oil prices and the slowdown of China’s economy. Most believe that the price of oil will recover and that China will continue its rise. They are mistaken. Instead of worrying about the rise of China, we need to fear its fall; and while oil prices may oscillate over the next four or five years, the fossil-fuel industry is headed the way of the dinosaur. The global balance of power will shift as a result.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
Vivek Wadhwa's clear-eyed essay is a stimulating read, an ode to the abiding benefits of technology and education, with plenty of proof points about what our near term future looks like. What is brewing from the repeated shocks to our global economy? Are our markets really so intertwined? What about progress in what seems to be chaos?
He makes this point about the end game: "the countries that have invested in educating their populations, built strong consumer economies, and have democratic institutions that can deal with social change will benefit — because their people will have had their basic needs met and can figure out how to take advantage of the advances in technology."
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At the company's Minds + Machines event in San Francisco today, GE unveiled a range of new Industrial Internet offerings.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
In Fast Company, Daniel Terdiman's thoughtful interview with Jeff Immelt covers GE's latest initiatives in the Industrial IoT. Excellent read that brings a lesson in the practical matters of selling new technology for legacy systems, and recruiting hot-shot engineer talent to an "oldschool" manufacturing giant. The IIot is a huge opportunity...
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A roundup of innovative startups and industries using sensor technology today.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
While the possibilities may be endless, the real-world applications of sensor-based technologies are above all practical. Creating safer businesses, building smart cities with environmental control, or monitoring personal health indices figure among the many useful ways our lives are improved by the Internet of Things.
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Public-sector participants see the White House's initiative as a means of accelerating investment and interest in building smart cities and the Internet of Things.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
The White House initiative is bringing New York City, Tampa and Wyoming into the effort to build up an Internet of Things as well. As part of the campaign, the U.S. Department of Transportation is spending $42 million to implement pilot projects in those three jurisdictions that will establish data-sharing connections between vehicles and infrastructure. In Tampa, that will mean sending information about rush-hour traffic to pedestrians’ smartphones. In Wyoming, the state will monitor trucking corridors. And in New York, the city will establish links between 10,000 municipal vehicles, as well as traffic signals and roadside units.
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"Many of the things happening in today’s Smart Cities could more honestly be labeled as “progress”. Smart Parking, Smart Homes and the like are just the next steps..."
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
David Socha says that what makes a city "smart" comes from integrating and analyzing data from often separate, quite distinct initiatives. Yet, this integration and analytics that we tout and that tech companies have learned to do so well has to bring actual benefits for citizens... Have a quick look at the data sources he's talking about.
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Inside the development of the technology driven city.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
Boyd Cohen has been studying Smart Cities initiatives since the inception of the term - circa 2011. His smart city rankings of world cities are published regularly in Fast Company and have become an important industry benchmark. In this essay published today, he marks the evolution of the Smart Cities concept in three distinct phases, from the technology-driven first endeavours, to government involvement, to citizen participation. His view is that cities must move from treating citizens as recipients of services, or even customers, to participants in the co-creation of improved quality of life.
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Crowd funding platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo together with the Maker movement have helped to make hardware sexy again and created the illusion that making hardware is easy. But making commercial hardware is so much more than prototypes and 3D printers...
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
In the Bosch Connected World blog, Alicia Asin of Libelium points to factors that show that hardware commoditization has not yet come to the Internet of Things, despite a feverish hype cycle.
These factors include a still-fragmented market, the lack of a single "winning" radio technology, the need for smarter end-devices with processing power, and more accuracy and precision in sensor devices.
Read on for the practical side of the hardware business... and how the IoT is a little like the early railroad age.
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Connectivity in Smart Cities from the Gartner report Internet of Things 2015
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
The infographic outlines key components of a smart city, the smartest mid-size cities in Europe, and a breakdown of Smart Cities markets. Data is from Gartner.
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How Incubating 'Makers' Start-Ups Could Revitalize Cities A struggling neighborhood in Baltimore could be a test case for bolstering local economies with small-scale manufacturing opportunities.
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
The vacant industrial buildings of Baltimore could be brought back to life as job centers, with emphasis on training and business development activities. “Our overall thesis is that maker spaces traditionally have been places for affluent early-adopters, and we are trying to expand the ambition of such facilities by building a platform that can also support a wide range of educational, entrepreneurial, and workforce development activities,” says Will Holman, project coordinator of the Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation, supported by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.
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US technology company Cisco, invited entrepreneurs, business advisers and innovators
Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
US technology company Cisco invited entrepreneurs, business advisers, investors and innovators to discuss how the "internet of everything" will transform the startup ecology of the UK. Happily, they invited the Guardian, there to report on this many-sided argument.
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What do Mesa, Arizona, Los Angeles and Riverside, California have in common? They're providing real-life examples of how the convergence of software and hardware improves infrastructure and creates a better quality of life for their residents.
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Judy Curtis / SIPR's insight:
451 Research sketches out the Internet of Things...
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Rick Robinson's article is a long read that is worth your time. He skillfully argues that still, today, many Smart City initiatives and debates focus far too much on applying for central Government funds and grants from Research and Innovation funding agencies; and far too little on sustainable business and investment models for new forms of city infrastructure and services.
The four points are easy and clear... read on:
Include Smart City criteria in the procurement of services by local authorities to encourage competitive innovation from private sector providersEncourage development opportunities to include “smart” infrastructureCommit to entrepreneurial programmesEnable and support Social Enterprise