American multinational technology conglomerate Cisco, has announced a new cloud service to enable smart cities take data driven, intelligent decisions using information collected from sensors, cameras, and other devices. This interesting and potentially significant scheme was announced just a day before Ubisoft’s launch of Watch Dogs 2 video game — which is all about hacking smart cities.
The announcement was made at the Smart City Expo World Congress 2016. It comes on the heels of Spanish video game developer Ubisoft’s launch of Watch Dogs 2. The video game will be debuted on the Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4 on Tuesday. It is about a group of hackers who run a group called DedSec. Interestingly enough, the game is based on the real life of a bunch of anonymous hackers from San Francisco.
Coming back to Cisco, the company will establish a cloud service that will help city leaders take action with their data in real time. With the help of this service, data from various departments and agencies of the city can securely be collected through third-party sensors, street cameras and other connected devices.
The collected data will help the authorities improve operational efficiencies, increase revenue and reduce costs of street lighting, and parking. Other services like traffic flow, environmental sensing, waste management, safety and security can also be worked upon and improved.
The most beneficial property of this cloud service is its interoperability and security. For instance, traffic-agency staff can use third-party applications and an open API from the Smart+Connected Digital Platform to receive information from sources both in and outside their agency.
Cities around the globe that are already using the platform are Kansas City in Missouri, Jaipur in India, Greater Copenhagen in Denmark and Adelaide in Australia.
Meanwhile, this also underlines the growing trend amongst corporations to cater to cities demand to evolve. We have been seeing cities all over the world strive to ensure that their decisions are smarter and driven by real time information rather than by any rule of thumb. Cisco’s latest product has huge potential, particularly considering that it comes to a rapidly growing market that is still in its infancy.
