Urenio Watch Watch: Intelligent Cities / Smart Cities

The Dos And Don’ts Of Building A Smart City

The fact is smart home products are just the beginning of what will become a much larger connected network within society. Now, various cities around the world are taking that connectivity to the next level. They’ re addressing some long-standing development issues by examining the potential of smart cities. In fact, estimates are that more than  $41 trillion will be invested in Internet of Continue reading

Online Tool that Generates High-Quality Geographic Maps of Data in Seconds

Have you ever had to create a map for your project, thinking you could get it done within 30 minutes, but then spent an entire afternoon on it? Between collecting data,  creating a base map, choosing a color scheme, and finally putting together a graphic, creating a map can be a long,  trying process, taking up precious time when you could be doing other work. Map-making shouldn’ t Continue reading

Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens

The Chinese government plans to launch its Social Credit System in 2020. The aim? To judge the trustworthiness ‘“ or otherwise ‘“ of its 1.3 billion residents. On June 14, 2014, the State Council of China published an ominous-sounding document called “Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System”. In the way of Chinese policy documents, it was a lengthy and rather Continue reading

Co-creating smart and sustainable cities in Europe: new flagship project announced

Urban environments are accelerating their transformation towards cleaner, friendlier places able to respect and use resources more efficiently. Across Europe, cities are blending social innovation, engineering and ICT excellence and smart technologies to help reach these goals. IRIS is proud to be identified at the forefront of this change and announce itself as the newest Continue reading

Smart City Pilot Projects: Exploring the Dimensions and Conditions of Scaling Up

This newly published article on the Journal of Urban Technology addresses the challenge of scaling up smart city pilot projects throughout the city, after initial testing and success. The authors of the article are Willem van Winden and Daniel van den Buuse. According to the abstract, ‘In many cities, pilot projects are set up to test new technologies that help to address urban sustainability issues, improve the effectiveness of urban services, and enhance the quality of life of citizens. These projects, often labelled as “smart

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Making smart cities more engaging and responsive

In this article by Colin O’ Donnell of Techcrunch.com reflects on why and how smart cities can become more engaging, responsive and relevant to citizen needs. In order to evolve into a city that fully realizes the potential of the internet, delivering real, tangible benefits to its inhabitants, cities will go through three phases: 1) They first need to collect data about their

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