Technology
Sense and the City
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 | Cities, Technology, Trends | No Comments
I’ve lately been excited by the concept of the senseable city (a term I’m borrowing from MIT). Being able to measure and visualize the intangible rhythms and pulses of a city can be incredibly powerful. As mobile devices are becoming more pervasive, and embeddable sensors cheaper, we have richer amounts of data at our disposal. Now, I know this could feed all your worst nightmares about Big Brother, and as with any technology, in the wrong hands, it could be used for nefarious purposes. However, this isn’t about a centrally controlled system of CCTV’s; this is about large amounts of raw anonymous data aggregated in ways where the whole tells us much more than any one part. Raw anonymous data doesn’t sound sexy, but Current City makes it look sexy:
SMS during New Years Eve from realtime city on Vimeo.
Cities XL: Next Generation City Simulation
Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | Planning, Technology, Trends | No Comments
Growing up, my first computer game was SimCity (the original). Ever since then, I’ve become fascinated with cities and, more importantly, the spaces between our real cities and the virtual communities we create online. I eventually ended up in the field of urban planning (unfortunately, it is not appropriate to release monsters on your city) and devote much of my mental and professional energy to imagining new ways to engage people around sustainability and planning.
Google Transit arrives on the iPhone
Monday, November 24th, 2008 | Technology | 1 Comment
I knew it would eventually come, but I didn’t realize how excited I would be to hold transit directions in the palm of my hand! Much of the inconvenience of riding transit is the lack of information. Google and Apple have just broken through the first barrier of inconvenience by bringing pervasive information to transit riders (which is my only means of getting around Denver). In case you haven’t heard, Apple just released version 2.2 of it’s iPhone operating system including updates to the Maps application, enabling transit and walking directions (as well as street view). › Continue reading
Twitter Updates
- Twitter Blog: Good Wine and Books - promote literacy in the poorest regions by buying some good wine http://bit.ly/bQVY5D >>
- Sunlight Live Recap: How We Did It — Making Government Transparent and Accountable - Sunligh.. http://tinyurl.com/y8m35kz >>
- Ron Sims, deputy sec of HUD, gave an inspiring speech at #NPSG. Let's get sustainability right! >>
- At #NPSG conference in Seattle. Heartened by the possibility of a sustainable future and more green jobs. >>
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