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Smart Trash

posted by Daniel Obodovski on May 15,2013 in Articles

I was recently asked, “What makes you excited about the Internet of Things?” Some analysts predict that the IOT will grow to 50 billion devices by 2020. In GE’s recent study, Industrial Internet, it forecasts that the Internet of Things will generate trillions of dollars in productivity savings. I don’t know about you, but it is not the numbers that …

Bringing the Internet of Things to the Built Environment via Building Systems Integration

posted by Alex Herceg on May 14,2013 in Articles

The evolution of commercial buildings over the past 100 years may be compared in scale to that of the airplane. Air-conditioning was first devised for industrial applications in New York in 1902. Over the next 30 years, cooling technology trickled into home and office buildings, allowing higher occupant densities and increased comfort. Fluorescent lighting began to replace incandescent lighting in …

Infographic: Which Cities Are Embracing the Green Revolution?

posted by Dave Hahn on May 17,2013 in Articles

An excellent infographic from HouseTrip.com. Thanks to Liam Fisher for the tip.

Technology Enabled Residents as Partners in Preparing for and Responding to Disasters

posted by Lyle Wray on May 16,2013 in Articles

We seem to be getting 100 year weather events every six months in New England over the past several years. The good news is that we are getting better at planning for and responding to disasters. Two things have come out of the last two or three disasters that should be useful going forward — a more robust engagement of …

Clueless But Contented: Canadians and Water

posted by Lynn Patterson on May 13,2013 in Articles

I’m lucky enough to hold the budget (and the pen) on the only national poll of Canadians about their attitudes towards water, so I take advantage of this annual opportunity to ask some oddball questions of my own that have taken root in the back of my head. So in the 2013 RBC Canadian Water Attitudes Study, I asked questions …

Will ICT Save the Planet?

posted by Seth Rosenberg on May 9,2013 in Weekly News Roundup

The GeSI SMARTer 2020 Report examines the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) enabled solutions in the power, transportation, agriculture and land use, buildings, manufacturing, and consumer and service sectors to fight climate change. The report determined that overall, ICT-enabled solutions offer the potential to reduce projected global GHG emissions in 2020 by 16.5% (9.1 Gigatons of carbon dioxide …

Design Technologies for Self-Organizing Cities

posted by Michael Mehaffy on May 6,2013 in Articles

The great polymath Herbert Simon once defined design as “the transformation of existing states to preferred ones.” There’s a lot packed into that elegant definition, and more questions than answers – but they are the right questions. Who is doing the preferring? How do we know when we have achieved the preferred states? What are the existing states, and how …

April 23rd Toronto Happy Hour Photos

posted by Dave Hahn on April 24,2013 in Past Events

Happy Hour Meet-ups, a set on Flickr. A casual happy hour meet-up for anyone interested in urban sustainability, connected technology and related fields. April 23rd, 2013 in at Against the Grain Urban Tavern, Toronto, Ontario.