Are We About To Witness A Digital Service Revolution?
Posted on | March 10, 2010 | No Comments
The launch of the book ”Connected Cities: Your 256 Billion Euro Dividend” this week in London by Living Labs Global in collaborationwith Design London, heralds how introducing new digital services in cities promises the change the way citzens live in cities around the world.
Only few years ago, digital services were about bandwidth, wireless protocols, and emerging standards for mobile television. To the keen observer, however, there has recently been a significant shift from antennas to services that might completely change the way we as citizens live, work and interact with technology around us.
At The Well Connected City symposium at Imperial College, cities, companies and universities came together to share experience and create partnerships for how cities can become increasingly ”smart” with the help of new digital service layers. From the integrated digital services in the transportation system of Paris, to the integration og mobile and online public services of the City of Westminster, the way citizens interact with the city in which they live is changing rapidly.
Around the world, groundbreaking services are already being piloted to allow the visually impared to move seemlessly around cities, to solve congenstion problems once and for all through intelligent and personalised car pooling, and implement sensor-networks in cities to create a smart city that only cleans the streets, turn on the street lights, and empties the harbage bins when there is a need. The economic potential is staggering, and the societal upsides clear. However, the consensus is that although the technology is already there, political leadership is needed to introduce this technology to society on a massive scale.
Skinput from Microsoft
Posted on | March 8, 2010 | No Comments
If you haven’t already heard, the brains at Microsoft together with researchers from Carnegie Mellon came together last week to debut their innovative solution to our touchscreen-centric world, a technological leap that transforms one skin into their personal touchscreen. Read more
Tags: Design > Location Based Services > Modifying Infrastructure
Digital Capital Week, Washington DC
Posted on | March 8, 2010 | No Comments
The city and the people that brought us the Apps for Democracy Model for service innovation in 2009, will launch the 2010 Digital Capital Week in June of 2010; The Purpose of Digital Capital Week is to strengthen the capital region’s digital economy via a 10 day series of events focused on creativity, technology, entrepreneurship, marketing, content creation, and innovation.
In anticipation of the event, DC in partnership with iStrategy Labs has spearheaded its own mini-census in an effort to explore the potential to conduct and complete a mobile and innovative census data collection process; the US in the mean time is gearing up for the costly and labor intensive process of collecting data for the 2010 US census. Thus far, they have collected over 1500 responses. Though they do have a ways to go, it will be interesting to see where technology is at in 2020 for the next census and the role that mobile technologies will play.
Tags: digitized markets > Modifying Infrastructure > New Business Models
New Socialight Platform, New Socialight Business Model
Posted on | March 4, 2010 | No Comments
Socialight, the New York based location-based social networking site, launched a new offering for potential users this past week. The Socialight Community Platform lets people, companies, and organizations easily launch apps around location-based content and community. Read more
Tags: community application development > Location Based Services > Modifying Infrastructure > New Business Models > Urban Development
Better Understand the Soundscape around you
Posted on | March 2, 2010 | No Comments
Is the world around you literally very noisy? Trains keeping you up at night? Or, is early morning traffic impeding on your sleep? Then, you might be compelled to check out the WideNoise application for the iPhone, an application which allows you to measure the level of noise pollution that engulfs you on a day to day basis.
Read more
Tags: Application > Location Based Services > New Business Models > Sensors > Urban Development
A Savvy App for Texting Fiends
Posted on | March 2, 2010 | No Comments
For those of you who find yourself texting about sensitive information, be it professional or otherwise, you might take interest in ,TigerText.com, a new application for iPhones that allows senders to control the lifespan of individual texts. Read more
Tags: Design > Modifying Infrastructure > New Business Models
Our Handbook on Innovation in Services and Mobility in Cities – “Connected Cities: Your 256 Billion Euro Dividend” – now out!
Posted on | February 28, 2010 | No Comments
Now out! "Connected Cities: Your 256 Billion Euro Dividend."
Tags: Cities > Design > DesignLondon > Handbook > Living Labs Global > Mobility > New Business Models > Service Innovation
VOIP on Mobile Phones challenge Business Models
Posted on | February 25, 2010 | No Comments
A while back we featured an article on the Mobility Report that highlighted the attractive and cheap possibilities presented by combining VOIP services and mobile phones. Six months later, I am compelled to point to an equally timely article printed last week in the New York Times about the disincentives or preventative obstacles designed by mobile operators to prevent their customers from using such VOIP Services. Read more
Sophisticated Ride-Sharing in Germany
Posted on | February 25, 2010 | No Comments
While conducting research for Living Labs Global these past few months in Germany, I spent a sizeable amount of time commuting between cities and I became particularly familiar with the corridor between Berlin and Hamburg.
Following a unsavoury trips on the bus, and a delightful but expensive trip on the train, a friend put me on to Mitfahrgelegenheit, a searchable rideshare website—Simply enter your departure city and destination city and the date you’d like to depart and find rides posted by like-minded folks. Read more
Showcase Award coverage by German National TV 3sat
Posted on | February 24, 2010 | No Comments
3sat neues, a programme covering new technologies on German national television attended the Living Labs Global Showcase Award Ceremony, covering the event and airing interviews with Lluis Recoder, Mayor of Sant Cugat, Sascha Haselmayer, General Director Living Labs Global, and Josep Miquel Pique, CEO of 22@ Barcelona. The coverage celebrated the efforts by Living Labs Global to find innovative solutions to societal problems based on a range of technologies and Showcased the Taxi2 mobile solution, presented for the first time to the public at the event; Urbiotica’s solutions for a digital urban operating system of wireless sensors and management; and the intelligent streetlighting systems in 22@ Barcelona.
Here the link to the coverage of the Living Labs Global Showcase Award (German)
Here the link to the coverage of 22@ Barcelona and Urbiotica (German)
3sat neues – full programme – Mobile World Congress and Living Labs Global Showcase Award
Tags: Barcelona > Caceres > Chicago > Eindhoven > La Selva > Living Labs Global > New Business Models > Oeiras > Sant Cugat > Sensors > Showcase Award > Stockholm > Taipei
Living Labs Global Channel
