Smart cities get their own operating system

From BBC.news.co.uk (Sept. 30):

Cities could soon be looking after their citizens all by themselves thanks to an operating system designed for the metropolis.

The Urban OS works just like a PC operating system but keeps buildings, traffic and services running smoothly.

The software takes in data from sensors dotted around the city to keep an eye on what is happening.

In the event of a fire the Urban OS might manage traffic lights so fire engines can reach the blaze swiftly.

The idea is for the Urban OS to gather data from sensors buried in buildings and many other places to keep an eye on what is happening in an urban area.

The sensors monitor everything from large scale events such as traffic flows across the entire city down to more local phenomena such as temperature sensors inside individual rooms.

The OS completely bypasses humans to manage communication between sensors and devices such as traffic lights, air conditioning or water pumps that influence the quality of city life.

A test bed for the Urban OS is currently being built in Portugal. For its work in developing smart cities, Living PlanIT was selected as one of the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers of 2012. [read more]

Nice idea, but I hope they have anti-virus software installed and firewalls to prevent hackers. If the system monitors air conditioning that’s a lot of power for city officials to have. So, if they think you are using to much air conditioning and increasing global warming, will the officials adjust your thermostat accordingly? Right now it looks like the OS is just monitoring everything and no-one is controlling the inputs of the sensors. Still it sounds like Big Computer is monitoring you.

If there are sensors on buildings will they alert the police if someone is breaking into your house? I hope the OS doesn’t have false alarms like home security systems have.

The article says that McLaren Electronic Systems is making the OS. They make computer sensors for Formula 1 and other various motorsports. I guess that is a good OS. I haven’t heard of any glitches with their OS in the news.