Tampere And Amsterdam Will Be Managed Online

Only the lazy one hasn’t heard about the concept of a smart city. Inventors’ forecasts say that soon all the equipment around us – from the iron to the car – will become “smart” (the forecasts do no say if people will match these technologies or not).

We described in detail earlier, what a smart-city was and what technologies it was based on. The process of creating a smart-city requires a huge amount of time and effort. The vice-president of Smart Home Don KHAM (the USA) told us about its difficulties and nuances:

“The starting point in the construction process is the creation of “smart” houses and buildings, which will provide comfort, safety, and energy savings through automation – the Internet of things. It is based on an implementation of environmental sensors, accelerometers, gyroscopes, manometers and many others into equipment. Due to the increase in the number of connected devices our cars, houses, regions, and cities will become managed via the Internet”.

As an example, Don KHAM describes the situation, when a sensor in a “smart house”, after detecting a water leak, sends a signal to turn off the water supply. It will allow avoiding huge monetary damage, especially when the owner is not at home. Don KHAM believes that “we are still at the initial stage of when cars and houses become “smart”. Therefore it will take some time for all the cities to become “smart”.

For many people, this concept is still something far and distant. However projects are being developed actively in many countries; and there are entire regions, built with the use of new technologies.

Don’s words confirm the fact that the situation is changing already. For example, the Sidewalk laboratory is already constructing a “smart” region in Canada. Intelligent sensors will gather and provide data about everything: carsharing, occupancy of buildings, and leakage of sewage. Germany, Luxembourg, Denmark, and China, among others, are moving towards increasing the efficiency of processes via the Internet of things – mainly through renewable sources of energy and autonomous vehicles.

One more example of how large companies contribute to the development of projects of a smart city is connected with Finnish company Nokia. That is: the company has been taking part in the inaugural project “Smart Tampere” that started in 2017.

Nokia’s representatives told in an exclusive interview to Bitnewstoday.com that the main purpose was to create an open centralized ecosystem for applications and services of a smart city. Company’s greatest contribution to the process is a mobile broadband test network, available to the state technical institute and the local university for the support of autonomous management of vehicles and drones. Besides, within the same project, Nokia created a regional cooling system for the data processing center in the city of Tampere. The company calls it one of the most significant achievements that have already become a great guide in the issues of “smart” energy.

Amsterdam is considered to be one of the leaders in the sphere of “smart” technologies.

The initiative of “Amsterdam smart-city” started in 2009 and now includes more than 170 projects. All of them were developed with joint efforts of local citizens, government, and business. The aim of the projects is to reduce the number of traffic jams, to save energy and increase public security.

City’s government annually holds Amsterdam Smart City Challenge, during which offers to improve the urban infrastructure are accepted. One of the results is the appearance of the Mobypark application. It allows owners of parking lots to rent them out for a fee. Besides, intelligent energy meters have been installed in the houses. Those, who reduce energy consumption, receive different bonuses. Among other initiatives, intelligent street lighting and “smart” traffic management should be noted.

All this proves once again that new technologies stop being something of the kind of fiction and are being introduced actively into our everyday life. And the future, where household appliances are almost independent of the owners, is already knocking at the “smart” door, which decides on its own, whether to let it in or not.