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from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong? dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Sensors distributed across the city will allow the collection of real-time data to improve services, says the council.
Using Internet of Things (IoT) sensors distributed around the city to provide data in real-time data, Hull City Council says it will be able to better control street lighting, refuse collection, parking and traffic congestion, with the goal of providing better services at a reduced cost.
The council is working with a local telecoms service provider, Connexin, which built on Cisco's Kinetic for Cities platform - a subscription-based software that lets city operators view and manage data from multiple sensors, and from a single panel.
Furqan Alamgir, founder of Connexin, told ZDNet: "We found that cities struggled to digitalise because they had lots of siloed systems. For example, they might have an LED management system and a traffic management system, but the two wouldn't link to each other.
"So, building on Cisco's platform, we built a central OS that normalises all the data into one language, so that all the sensors can speak to one another seamlessly."
The platform, called CityOS, pulls together and aggregates information from a range of different IoT sensors, before passing it on to city operators. This means the data is easier to visualise, and can then be used to better manage resources.
Councillor Daren Hale said: "The system pulls together information that currently sits within separate council computer systems that enable city-wide management of the city's public assets in real time."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 15 2019, @05:34PM (1 child)
Since when is spending big bucks on what is likely a boondoggle considered "smart"?
Here's what almost certainly happened: local telecom services provider Connexin found a way to get friendly with a city government - campaign contributions and potentially kickbacks to key people were almost definitely involved. Said key people were induced to repay the favor by coming up with work for Connexin to do. Connexin thought a bit about what they could sell that would keep them piling in the city dough for a long time, and came up with this "Smart City" initiative with all sorts of promises about the benefits to the city. The key people in question managed to make the changes a reality, possibly with the help of dupes who thought they were genuinely on to something useful. Whether the promised benefits are ever realized, of course, is entirely incidental to the whole scam.
And of course this article exists in an effort for Connexin to fish for other cities that might be dumb enough to fall for the same marketing schtick as the Hull city council members who weren't in on the scheme fell for.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday October 15 2019, @11:06PM
"Since when is spending big bucks on what is likely a boondoggle considered "smart"?"
Since forever? I started to look up a few for examples and was quickly overwhelmed.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.