Innovations to make cities smarter

Buildings that know when they need to be fixed before something breaks. Smart water and sewage systems that can filter and recycle water. Sensors that give fire departments details of a fire before they receive the emergency phone call.

Sounds futuristic?

These are some of the predictions IBM researchers say will make cities smarter over the next five years.

An estimated 60 million people around the world live in cities and experts predict population in the world's cities will double by 2050. As populations grow, city leaders are looking for ways to improve life in cities as they face massive urbanization and demands on their infrastructure.

IBM's annual "5 in 5 " lists 5 innovations that will change the way we work, live and play in cities.

• Cities will have healthier immune systems - Given population density, cities remain hotbeds of communicable diseases. But in the future, public health officials will know precisely when, where and how diseases are spreading – even which neighborhoods will be affected next.
• City buildings will sense and respond like living organisms - In the future, the technology that manages facilities will operate like a living organism that can sense and respond quickly, in order to protect citizens, save resources and reduce carbon emissions.
• Cars and city buses will run on empty - Vehicles will begin to run on new battery technology that won’t need to be recharged for days or months at a time, depending on how often you drive. Smart grids in cities could enable cars to be charged in public places and use renewable energy, such as wind power, for charging so they no longer rely on coal-powered plants.
• Smarter systems will quench cities’ thirst for water and save energy - Cities will install smarter water systems to reduce water waste by up to 50 percent. Cities also will install smart sewer systems that not only prevent run-off pollution in rivers and lakes, but purify water to make it drinkable. Advanced water purification technologies will help cities recycle and reuse water locally, reducing energy used to transport water by up to 20 percent.
• Cities will respond to a crisis -- even before receiving an emergency phone call - Cities will be able to predict emergencies in order to reduce and prevent them. Law enforcement agencies already use IBM software to analyze the right information at the right time, so that police and other law enforcement personnel can take proactive measures to head off crime. Sounds like that movie Minority Report.
  

IBM has posted a blog and accompanying YouTube video, that offers further insights about the innovations coming our way. I've also written a story about the innovations.

CIA invests in social media monitoring software

Could your blogs and tweets eventually be monitored by the CIA? An interesting article by "Wired" magazine's Noah Shactman, U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets, reports that the CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, has bought a stake in Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. Visible's technology crawls through millions of web sites, picking up posts and conversations from blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube and Amazon, Shactman's article states. Currently, it doesn't touch closed sites such as Facebook.

In-Q-Tel spokesperson Donald Tighe told Shactman that intelligence agencies want Visible to keep track of foreign social media and give intelligence analysts early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally. But as the article points out, the tool can be used inward to monitor domestic bloggers or tweeters. Visible already keeps tabs on web 2.0 sites for Dell, AT&T, Microsoft and Verizon. For instance, the company is monitoring animal-rights activists' sites for Spam-maker Hormel.

The article is a must-read along with Shactman's interview on DemocracyNow conducted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Oct. 22. As a Facebook and Twitter user some of the issues raised in that interview cause concern. Shactman noted that Microsoft and Google recently signed deals with Twitter and Facebook where all of our tweets and blog updates will be easily searchable via Microsoft's Bing search engine and Google. I wonder if my wall posts that can now only be viewed by my friends will now be exposed to the whole world? Or will the privacy of password-protected tweets and closed Facebook walls still be safeguarded?

A Time of Renewal

So, I was listening to the Kojo Nnamdi show Monday on my car radio (WAMU, 88.5 FM) as he spoke with the presidents of Georgetown University and the University of Maryland in College Park about their colleges and education. Both schools are located in the metro Washington, D.C. area

C. D. “Dan” Mote, Jr., the president of UMD, described going back to school after the summer break as a time of renewal. That resonated with me because I have a colleague at work who has returned to school to pursue a master’s degree. I’ve shared his excitement –and anxiety at times – as he returned to school after a long hiatus and worked his way back into the rhythm of classes, reading assigned books and writing papers. President Mote’s words also took me back to my college years when each fall was like a new beginning, a time of discovery, an intellectual adventure.

I yearned for that sense of renewal -- which brings me to the topic of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar that began for me and most Muslims on August 22 upon the sighting of the new moon. Ramadan is also a time of renewal. Ramadan, Muslims believe, is when the first words of the Qur’an were revealed by God to Prophet Muhammad via the angel Jabril (Gabriel) more than 1,430 years ago.

During this month, as instructed by God in the Qur’an, Muslims fast for 29 or 30 days about an hour before sun rises until sunset so that they “will learn self-restraint,” as one translation of the book states. Observance of the month does not only involve abstaining from food and drink and intimate relationships with one’s spouse during the daylight hours. It also means to abstain from bad habits or bad deeds. The aim is to reflect on one’s shortcomings through prayer and reading of Qur'an, and to increase one’s good and charitable works so that by the end of the month that person will have achieved spiritual, mental and physical renewal.

So, for those starting a new school year or engaged in observing Ramadan or doing both, open your mind and heart to intellectual and spiritual discovery. The days and nights are pregnant with new opportunities.

Agony at Gethsemene

One of the sites I found especially moving during my trip through Israel was the Garden of Gethsemene, where Jesus reportedly prayed(while his disciplines slept) and was arrested. We all have to go through those dark moments of meeting self, our own Gethsemene, which is why this site, along with the Sea of Galilee, stayed with me more than some others. I have been very bad about blogging Rutrell was better than I was during the spring--but we both plan to get regular soon. In the meantime, here's a photo of a portion of the Garden, which is outside the Church of Gethsemene. Some of the olive trees(the ones with really thick and gnarly trunks) date back 2,000+ years.

A Dog Named N...

I was channel surfing over the Memorial Day weekend and came across a movie called The Dam Busters, a 1955 British war film set during the Second World War.

Turns out the lead character’s black Labrador was named Nigger. That got my attention.

The Dam Busters is based on the true story of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron and the development of the bouncing bomb. The Squadron used the bombs, which bounced across the water to avoid torpedo nets, in Operation Chastise during the attack on the Ruhr dams in Germany.

The movie stars Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis, designer of the bomb, and Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson.

I didn’t watch the whole movie, by 12 midnight I was fading fast. But I did do a Google search afterwards and found out that, indeed, Gibson’s dog was named Nigger and he was the unit’s mascot. He was hit by an automobile and died shortly before the mission, an incident that is depicted in the film.

A remake of the film is reportedly in production. It is being produced by Peter Jackson, directed by first time director Christian Rivers and scripted by Stephen Fry.

Jackson hasn’t made a decision on what to call the dog. He’s in a no-win situation. If he doesn’t use the name Nigger then he risks not being historically accurate; if he does, he runs the risk of offending countless numbers of people.

Sir David Frost, the executive producer, has reportedly said that Gibson also called his dog Nigsy, so he prefers using that name.

I’m of the opinion that they should keep the name for historical accuracy. That was the name of the dog and it does say something about the mores and thinking of the time. Incidentally, I have seen some blog comments that ask, “Why do a remake at all?” There are too many remakes and less original content these days, they argue. I would say hear, hear, but that’s for another blog.

I don’t know what Gibson was thinking or if in his book on the mission he explains how he came about naming his dog. But I do think that the reason behind the name is not as simple as the dog was black. Some blog comments I have seen say that nigger means black and, at that time in England, the reference is to the dog’s color. Therefore the name is not racist, they claim.

Mmmm. “Negro” from the Spanish and Portuguese means black. However, nigger as a derogatory word to describe black people dates back to at least the 1800s. So, I’m quite sure people in 1940s England -- whose empire was once so vast that the sun never set on it – were familiar with the pejorative connotation of the word.

The trick for the producers and writer of the remake is how to keep the name but convey to a contemporary audience that the mores of the time were insensitive to the feelings and humanity of brown and black people.

That’s why they’re getting paid the big bucks.

See You at The Top

If you’ve read my profile you know that I trekked up Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania nearly two years ago.

Kilimanjaro is the world’s largest free standing mountain, 5,891 meters or 19, 330 feet at its peak.

And while I no longer dream that I’m actually climbing Kili – something that kept occurring weeks after the trek – I still think about that trip, our group of eight trekkers and the people I met along the way to the top.

One young man named Martin from Germany particularly stands out.

My group spent six days on the mountain – four days attempting to reach the top via the Machame route and two days descending. The group included my wife, her twin sister and her husband, my sister and her husband, my sister-in-law’s colleague Kimani, and a teacher from Vancouver, Canada I met on the bus from Arusha to Moshi, Tanzania who decided to join our group.

We met Martin on the second day at Shira Camp after a day of trekking that took us out of the green, lush rain forest into the rocky moorlands. He passed our camp in search of one of the many latrines scattered about the area.

We were relaxing, watching the many clouds float into the camp engulfing us, blocking out the sun and then passing on toward Kibo, one of Kili’s two snow-capped peaks. We exchanged greetings and all the inquiries about where we were from with Martin. At the end of the conversation, Martin said: “See you at the top.”


Afterwards, Martin and his group would pass us along the trail and we would greet one another. He was with a group of young British trekkers, probably in their late twenties, and as they passed us with hiking sticks in both hands, they seemed to be moving at a swift pace. I, for one, embraced the concept of “Pole, Pole,” slowly, slowly in Swahili.

“See you at the top,” Martin would always say as he passed.

The night of the ascent to the Summit --- you start the ascent at midnight to arrive at the top by sunrise – I crossed paths with Martin again. That last ascent from camp Barafu (which means ice in Swahili, so you get an indication that we were moving into the arctic region) everyone looks like coal miners because we have headlamps on to see. You look up the mountain there's a trail of lights, you look down the mountain another trail of lights.

My headlamp, unfortunately, did not work and as I and Kimani broke away from our group at a faster pace with Taday, one of our guides, I found that Kimani didn't have a flashlight and the batteries had died in Taday’s big flashlight. So it was dark. And it was a struggle trekking with a 35 to 40 mph wind blowing us around, our water bottles freezing, my legs becoming like lead. I had never experienced such exhaustion in my life.

As I rested on a rock, briefly contemplating turning back as I watched a man who had passed us along the way with his guide, now turning back -- defeated by Kili -- another group of trekkers, their headlamps lighting up the path, slowly trekked by.

The last one in line stopped, shined his light on me and said: "Hello."

I knew that voice. "Martin"? I said, exhausted.

"Yes. See you at the top," he said and he kept moving on.

I did make it to the Summit, a place called Stella Point, close to 18.840 feet or more, near the snowy crater – enough to get a certificate stating that I’d made it to the top. But opted not to push on to Uhuru Peak.

I didn’t see Martin at the top. But I did meet him on his ascent down from the Peak. “So you made it to the Peak?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “My friends made me.”

And he kept on trekking.

More Chris-Rihanna 'News'? No Thanks!

Are many people really lusting after more news on the Chris Brown/Rihanna abuse case? This was the argument Harvey Levin of TMZ.com, the celebrity news and gossip website, tried to make this morning on Reliable Sources. Howard Kurtz, the host and Washington Post news media critic, posed the question of whether the elite newspaper media felt above the story, since publications like the New York Times relegated the charges to a paragraph in the Arts section. In contrast, cable, network news, and tabloids gave the matter ample coverage. Too much, I’d say. My guess is that most Americans didn’t even know who these two were until Brown’s alleged attack. I think such coverage does shine some light on domestic violence(once again), so there is some benefit, but the blowup of the story on the evening news(I caught it on Katie Couric’s newscast) is why journalism has lost credibility with more serious news consumers. TMZ’s Levin tried to make the case that the failure to give people the kind of news they want—in this instance the Chris Brown story, which TMZ is all over—is why newspapers are suffering such losses, but that’s just his way of promoting his brand. Many newspaper readers are tired of the heavy focus on celebrity coverage and tabloid news. The celebrity obsession is fine for TMZ, but the Chris Brown/Rihanna story isn’t front page news in a world where there is so much economic and social upheaval worldwide. Put Brown in jail if he’s guilty, get Rihanna some counseling, and use precious news space for pressing issues facing us all.