You can find wifi on the streets, some cities even offer free city-wifi. It's often hard to get good WiFi coverage in areas. Access to locations for antennas and the morphology of the area can be a burden, both for Wifi as for 3G/4G networks. With iPavement though, wifi is incorporated in the street. WiFi antennas in the street or square pavement. A stone with a 5GB processor and power every 20 meters will make sure the coverage is good. The Spanish company already paved the Puerta del Sol square in central Madrid. Only when temperatures drop below -10 celsius it stops operating. This could cause a problem for some services, but these for most Spanish people inhuman temperatures also encourages people to go inside.
This product raises some questions. The local government owns and manages the street, when a local government paves the streets with iPavement does it than become an operator and service provider? Or is pavement the solution for the lack of sites telco's experience and a chance for governments to earn more taxes?
The stones come with apps and an operating system too. It's unclear how these integrate with existing systems and sources. To deliver interesting services these services and system need to be managed and the question is if municipalities are ready for this. It is a real challenge to many cities to deliver attractive services over so many platforms to the people.
Anyway, ipavement could change the landscape of networks and the role of local governments, as they now can offer connectivity on the streets. It's great example of the merging of the physical and virtual world. It's truly an innovation that can play a central role in smart cities and hyper local content.
Many retail chains and shop owners seek ways to boost their sales. Especially in a time where online shopping is getting a bigger market share every week and mobile shopping is about to enter the stage. Shopping in real live has value and can add value to a product. Offering better service and off the shelf delivery are not enough, giving the customer a better experience is key to success. This shadow QR-code is a great example of a creative shop experience.
Google's glass project is a good example of the next step towards future internet. Internet is merging directly into your living space. Intruding into sense and vision. The internet becomes less of an text-based internet that you access through a device, and more of a web around you that acts according to your situation. It's there to make your live easier and evolves into more than a personal assisent. Some call it your second mind. The quantified self movement, in which people measure their behavior with the help of iPhones and cheap sensors, give insight in behavior. These type of devices takes it a step further by turning insight into (proposed) actions in your environment at the right time and place. The Google Glasses's remind me of other projects like that of the Swedish company TAT and bionic contact lenses, that project images on lenses. And what would happen if this was integrated with MIT's Pranav Misty's Sixth Sense?
A parody on Google's glass project is already made, titled Google Glasses: A New Way to Hurt Yourself.
The mobile phone has rapidly become a very essential tool, that we carry with us all the time, everywhere we go. It has become the focus of our communication and information in a hyper-connected world, which tolerates less and less that we disconnect or just don't have immediate access to information. Based on this conclusion the City of Geneva decided to take the challenge to visualize these digital traces created by our mobile phones. The objective of this installation is to make this data visible and allow you to explore these streams of connected people around the city, in their everyday life. (source : villevivante.ch)
This animation is a video impression of something we have seen before, but is done pretty good. It's an info-video.
Follow us on Twitter