Opinions, think-pieces, articles and observations around smart cities and the future of urban living.
As urban landscapes expand and technology advances, the brilliance of our night skies is steadily being overshadowed by artificial light. The enchanting spectacle of a starlit sky is fading from view, obscured by the pervasive glow of urban development. The Dark Skies initiative stands as a beacon of hope, striving to safeguard this celestial heritage for future generations.
The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, made a rare and spectacular appearance across the UK last Friday and Saturday, enchanting sky watchers nationwide. This event, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the extreme geomagnetic storm of 2003, brought vibrant auroras to areas far beyond their usual northern limits. Such breathtaking sights are becoming more frequent as we approach the solar maximum of the Sun's 11-year cycle, with increased sunspot activity leading to more intense auroras.
Smart streetlights create numerous benefits: enabling users to audit progress in their switch to LED lighting, reduce energy usage, reduce carbon footprint, remotely diagnose faults, better maintenance efficiency and many more. The initial up-front cost of smart street lighting requires a rapid return-on-investment (ROI) to justify the capital expense. The good news is, smart streetlight ROI is fast if users are able to financially benefit from the energy reduction achieved using the enhanced dimming and trimming profiles that these systems provide.
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In recent years innovation in the smart city tech landscape has enabled cities to deploy established pilots. But these pilots have stayed just that, pilots, as the cost and complexity of having numerous vertically integrated applications has hindered cash-strapped local authorities. As such, AI-driven solutions have evolved to enable data collection on a whole new level. This year's hot topic goes beyond data collection to the realms of data ownership and data trust. How can cities use data collected from smart city sensors to become more sustainable, all while retaining transparency with citizens? Here is our list of ten events to look out for, touching on the latest in technology developments and policy-making.
