Smart Cities is a catchy concept used by big IT vendors like IBM, to market their technology vision. A smart city is what happens when the city you live in (a dumb city?) is upgraded with a specific new infrastructure:The Internet Of Things.

Imagine a pixie dust of networked sensors sprinkled on everything you see. Imagine how everything is outfitted with sensors and an Internet connection: every door, every light, every solar panel, every car, every intersection. Every coffee machine and dishwasher. Every piece of clothing in shops, and on your body.

Now imagine what you can do if you had access to all that information. Yes, that’s Big Brother and yes, your protest is noted but it’s gonna happen anyway. Imagine you are Big Brother, or, less ominous: the mayor of this smart city.

You can see traffic jams and, if you buy enough computers, you can predict traffic jams. You can see and modulate in real time the electricity flows, water use, waste disposal. You can optimize the planning and routing of public services to harmonize with the ebb and flow of activities in this living city. It’s like Sim City for real.