近期在荷兰鹿特丹举行的M2M交流大会上，葡萄牙科技公司Living Plan IT展示了高智能化的“城市操作系统”。据悉，“城市操作系统”是第一个能够应对和管理城市500亿个设备所产生的庞大数据的智能系统。其操作原理类似苹果公司产品的操作系统，是一个可以迅速安装和运行各种应用程序的公共平台。人们可以通过一个名为PlaceApps的系统创建新应用程序，并把它植入“城市操作系统”之中，用以控制建筑物、照明设施等。智能手机的应用程序也有望接入“城市操作系统”，远程操控家用电器和能源系统。目前，该公司正在葡萄牙北部打造智能城市“PlanIT谷”，以测试“城市操作系统”的可行性，预计将于2012年年中迎来首批住户。
Concept art for PlanIT Valley in northern Portugal, which is set to be functional by 2012, will be run on a giant computer operating system.
When the cities of the future are portrayed on the big screen they usually present dystopian visions of urban decay.
But a city-building project underway in northern Portugal is out to overturn those concepts with a super-functional 'smart city' where the entire metropolis is run by one big computer system.
Imagine if a building could not only sense a fire, but use its lighting system to show residents a safe escape route and then interact with the traffic light grid to ensure fire engines have easier access as other traffic is directed away.
That is the reality of the Urban Operating System, which has been unveiled at the Machine-2-Machine conference in Rotterdam, Holland, by Portuguese technology company Living Plan IT.
The Urban OS will not be dissimilar to the type of OS that runs on Apple products - a common platform that enables new apps to be built and deployed quickly.
It is not for nothing that Steve Lewis, CEO of Living Plan IT, refers to this it as the iPhone model.
The 'smart' city will be run on the Urban Operating System, which will control everything from water and electricity to traffic lights.
Via a system called PlaceApps, it will even allow for apps to be created and integrated into the larger system in order to control buildings, lighting or other facets of urban management.
It's hoped that eventually even our smartphones could interact with the Urban OS to operate household appliances and energy systems.
This can be done, the company says, while ensuring people’s security and privacy is protected.
Urban OS is to be tested in earnest as a management system for in PlanIT Valley, a futuristic new city which is already under construction in Paredes near Porto, Northern Portugal, in partnership with technology giants Cisco and Microsoft.
While there have already been many ideas for how 'smart cities' could look, the Urban OS is the first time anyone has produced a system capable of handling and managing the enormous volume of data that would be produced by an entire city - 50billion devices interacting.
But rather than being a prohibitively expensive project, full of cutting-edge technology, PlanIT Valley is designed to be a low cost innovation, making savings in both its construction and subsequent operation.
Living Plan IT expects to save 30-40 per cent on traditional building costs and construct buildings 30-50 per cent faster and to a much higher quality.
This will also lead to significant savings in operation costs for the buildings based on the use of new materials and designs.
To help run the Urban OS there will be around one million high-tech sensors throughout the city - one every square foot - that have been designed by McLaren Electronic Systems, modeled on their Formula 1 race car technology.
The various innovations from the project are sure to be examined closely by developers worldwide who are tasked with urban regeneration programmes.
Living Plan IT, which was recently selected by the World Economic Forum as one of its Technology Pioneers of 2012, expects the first residents to move into PlanIT Valley around the middle of next year.
It may be the case that the most exciting insights from PlanIT Valley will not be about how we build new cities, but how we make old ones fit for the 21st century.
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