LINK FOR THE VIDEO
I never realized how much Formula 1 races and racecars in general depend upon technology. Each car has a team of techies monitoring every fluctuation in the car’s performance and collecting data in order to diagnose what needs to be changed at each pit stop. I thought NASCAR had turned stale, with no innovation, but that’s just naive thinking. In the same way statistics revolutionized baseball, monitoring a car’s performance and analyzing data has transformed the sport of racing.
This TED talk explains how that, in the same way we can monitor a car’s health, we can monitor the state a city is in. By using data that is automatically collected from people’s cell phones (anonymously), we can see if there are any fluctuations in the population spread of a city, i.e. if there’s an NFL game in the city that night, then we can temporarily adapt utilities, the electricity grid etc. to improve efficiency.
Furthermore, we currently have the ability to track trash by putting miniature trackers that are powered by 9 volts onto trash items. The trackers can transmit their location as a signal to a computer database. With the data, we can visualize the path of garbage and use that data to shore up inefficiencies in the system.
Today’s technology also allows us to create floating “pixels” the size of golf balls that can be controlled wirelessly via a computer program. They’re propelled and held in the air by two rotars. Although the size of a golf ball, a collection of thousands of these “pixels” make the perfect screen when viewed from a distance. If I had the money, I'd create a GIANT screen over NY and display my thoughts on it for the whole city to see. Occasionally I'd through up the bat symbol, too.
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