An Operating System For Cities

CProgrammer98 writes "BBC News reports that cities may soon get their own operating system. From the article: 'The Urban OS works just like a PC operating system but keeps buildings, traffic and services running smoothly. The software takes in data from sensors dotted around the city to keep an eye on what is happening. In the event of a fire, the Urban OS might manage traffic lights so fire trucks can reach the blaze swiftly. The sensors monitor everything from large scale events such as traffic flows across the entire city down to more local phenomena such as temperature sensors inside individual rooms. The OS completely bypasses humans to manage communication between sensors and devices such as traffic lights, air conditioning or water pumps that influence the quality of city life."

!OS

[arth1]

That is not an OS in any established or even equivalent sense of the word.

I also predict major driver issues.

Re:Nice

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Arguably, much of the interest in centralization seems to be a mixture of telcom, database, and analytics outfits looking for a problem to which they have a solution in stock, along with an e-penis competition among municipal and emergency services types about who can have the coolest "Command Center" with the biggest vector-art map of the city at the front, and the most uniformed people Looking Serious at banks of monitors.

This sort of problem is one where a distributed systems approach is overwhelmingly more sensible(unless your primary interests are selling system integration and/or conducting surveillance), and often already in effect.

For instance, in many cities, you will see a small sensor unit mounted somewhere on the traffic-light structures(distinguishable by a little tubular sun-shade thing). That device is there to pick up coded IR pulses emitted by emergency vehicles with their emergency lighting activated and deviate from the usual traffic light pattern in favor of giving them priority at the intersection.

There you go. A few cheap sensors, interacting with local stimuli and control systems, produces the broad-level effect you want. Works great in biological systems as well.

I can't wait to root this

[Anonymous Coward]

This thing read like a wet dream. One o/s...monitoring...and controlling....every sensor in the city?

Connected to traffic cameras, traffic lights, building HVAC, lighting systems. That is aware of where fire trucks and law enforcement are? That can give me temperatures on a room-by-room basis? Will it integrate with alarm systems too? Can I use it to monitor lighting and power usage in a room to tell that somebody *really* arrives at 9:03 every day?

Where do I sign up to gain access to the API docs? I want this.

Well...no...really...I want to sell it to somebody with a botnet...but..details.

Re:and it will never happen....

[arth1]

I think disabling all traffic lights and turning off stop signs every Sunday would help a lot. People would have to re-learn the traffic rules they have forgotten, like yield to right and do not block intersection on pain of nightstick.

No, I am NOT kidding.