Like veins that form the network transporting blood through our bodies, roads and electric lines transport energy and resources through cities. As people and companies share the desire to move from point A to point B as cheaply and quickly as possible, city systems evolve to become more efficient, thanks to continuous feedback mechanisms. However, communities still must utilize resources within the constraints of availability.
Read MoreThe excitement around 5G is palpable at the Brooklyn 5G Summit this week, and for good reason. Once the province of academic engineers, there is increasingly a consensus emerging among technology leaders that millimeter-wave technology is ready for prime time.
“Smart cities” isn’t just a description of highly connected towns; it also applies to those municipalities looking to spur growth of “The Internet of Things.” To do that wisely means partnering with private enterprise and easing regulations that could inhibit internet expansion, not building local municipal networks to manage these smart cities. It also will require the Federal Communications Commission to continue to break down barriers to 5G deployment.
Read MoreAn accountant, a farmer and a teacher walk into a train depot... Sounds like the beginning of a great joke doesn’t it? Funny enough, I met people in each of those professions as well as many others at the AgLanta Conference 2018. At this year’s conference, we focused on the role of agriculture in ‘smart cities’. To start the conference off, Henry Gordon-Smith, Founder of Agritecture, so eloquently asked the audience: “can a city really be smart without agriculture?”
Autonomous cars are much in the news, mostly because of the collisions that are bound to happen as we mix human and robot drivers. These raise obvious questions — who pays when a robocar kills? — but the uproar over safety overlooks the fact that autonomous technology will take over commercial trucking long before the average person has to decide whether to ride in a robo-cab. Companies are building autonomous trucks today for the controlled environments of shipping ports and large industrial sites (which already have self-driving forklifts!).
Read MoreThere's a race to 5G and the U.S. is not winning — China and South Korea are, according to a report conducted by research firm Analysys Mason and released today by CTIA, the wireless industry association.
Read MoreOver $14.85 billion have been spent on smart city initiatives in 2015. By 2020, the figure is expected to double and reach $34.45 billion.
Read MoreSmart city projects in China are expected to generate $320 billion for the nation's economy by 2025, according to Frost & Sullivan.
Read More