Smart Citizens

  1. Data recording platforms
  2. The value of citizen-run sensor networks
  3. Applications
  4. Noise pollution

Data recording platforms

Data recording platforms

Basic concepts

  • platform has several users
  • users have one or more devices
  • devices have one or more sensors
  • devices push sensor data to the platform

Data recording platforms

Example: Cosm

  1. Create account
  2. Connect sensor
  3. Setup trigger: tweet when value is low

Data recording platforms

Core functions of the platforms

  • data storage
  • data retrieval (export + API)
  • data visualization
  • triggers (notify a person or a program)
  • social network features

Data recording platforms

Business models

  • make money with selling hardware (Ninja Blocks, Twine, ...)
  • premium services (more/better data storage, …)
  • selling data: unclear, none of the startups mentions this explicitly

Data recording platforms

Many similarities

Not that much differentiation:

  • Cosm: pioneers, seem to have largest community
  • some offer hardware: Twine, Ninja Blocks, ...
  • others try to differentiate by making it easier to set up complex
    • triggers (Sens.e can convert units, supports simple math on data etc without requiring coding.)

Question 1

Smart Citizen as a data recorder platform?

  • There are already plenty of startups that provide a solution for the problem of storing and retrieving data.
  • Does it make sense for the Smart Citizen project to put a lot of effort into this part of the project?
  • How long before Google start a similar initiative and turn this type of service into a commodity?

Question 2

How could SC differentiate itself from the other platform?

  • Local focus: Barcelona .Others are global in scope.
  • Provide context and help with interpretation: Context: IAAC, professional in architecture, interaction design, ... Others look at the IoT as a technical problem.
  • Focus on change. Startups are focussed on profits first, the rest is secondary.

The value of citizen-run sensor networks

What happens when everybody becomes a data producer?

The value of citizen-run sensor networks

For example: the Air Quality Egg project was started to disrupt the current state of affairs:

  • Measuring equipment is expensive.
  • Measuring stations are far away from where people live.
  • Equipment is in the hand of specialists.

 

AQE is cheap, can be placed in people’s homes and its data is accessible to all.

The value of citizen-run sensor networks

How today’s internet is killing our culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cult_of_the_Amateur

Andrew Keen: amateurs are ruining everything

 

This is a very extreme view, but it does raise some legitimate questions

The value of citizen-run sensor networks

Problems

  • How do we define concepts like "air quality"?
  • How do we know the sensors measure what they claim to measure? How do we know our sensors are calibrated properly? How do we deal with different brand of sensors?
  • How do we interpret results correctly?

The value of citizen-run sensor networks

Perhaps the quality of the data is not as good as scientific data.

But: important to start debate about these environmental issues. It's about creating awareness and forcing a change.

Here the SC project can also make a difference by providing context: set up collaborations with scientists, universities and local authorities, provide data analysis, workshops on sensors, ...

Applications

  1. dashboard
  2. user friendly triggers and data processors
  3. make data tangible
  4. information visualization in public space

Applications

Dashboard

Applications

User friendly triggers and data processors

Applications

Making data tangible

Applications

Info viz in public space

 

This is important, otherwise the data remains nothing more than numbers. Information visualization in the public space is interesting because it is a very direct way of communicating data. (Danger: becomes a gimmick.)

Case study: noise pollution

Why noise pollution

Case study: noise pollution

Visualizing