The company that started as a search engine could someday create a city. Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., recently announced its intentions to build a "Smart City" within one or more existing cities across the US. In these cities, which will be selected as part of the $40-million Smart Cities competition, Google will build up infrastructure for driverless cars, data sensors, connected vehicles, and public WiFi. Since Google declined to give any input on what its city might look like, authors of this article drew ideas from Brooks Rainwater, the Director of the City Solutions and Applied Research Center at the National League of Cities, as well as Google's existing projects and investments, trying to envision what an entire Google City could look like. According to their envision, a Google City might be somewhere in the Midwest. WiFi hotspots might be widespread across the city, offering a free and public alternative to broadband internet use. The rise of self-driving vehicles could make speed limits and traffic lights obsolete. Ride-sharing programs might lead to fewer cars on the road and eliminate the need for parking garages. Public transportation would allow for real-time updates on delays, traffic jams, and ridership volume. Facial recognition technology could make security as simple as taking a picture. Public ads powered by big data might personalize billboards and posters to your interests. Energy sources would be entirely renewable, as wind and solar eliminate the need for fossil fuels. Farmers could get real-time updates on soil health and moisture levels, yielding richer growing seasons. Schools might be densely connected webs of collaboration between students, parents, teachers, and administrators. Health care might be highly patient-centric thanks to comprehensive health records that can be shared between hospitals. http://www.techinsider.io/google-city-imagining-a-city-from-the-internet-up-2016-4
Too bad there's no unclaimed and unpopulated frontier left for designing and establishing a "smart country" from scratch. Which would be minus the encouraged economic / resource dependence on an unstable international world, the despotic micro-management of bloating bureaucracies, and the exploited vulnerabilities of old-school government / legislative / legal systems whose borders any "smart cities" will have to be compromisingly crouched within and subservient to. Even the Arctic and Antarctic seem already carved up into holdings, should they un-melt into better habitable territories.
