After MIT's Duckietown (remember the mini duck-taxis?) breakthrough for self-driving technology, Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs is also setting its sights on building a high-tech city from the ground up.
According to TechTimes, the connected city concept was inspired from figuring out other solutions to urbanized areas with problems such as limited public transport, inadequate access to connectivity, pollution, and traffic congestion. CEO of Sidewalk Labs Daniel Doctoroff has assembled a team of like-minded people committed to resolving these issues, and meet Larry Page, Alphabet's CEO, for the said project.
Page said that Alphabet's Sidewalk is focusing on the improvement of city life for all through development of other urban technologies, and find solutions for soceity's issues. He also stated that the investment may seem to deviate from what Google is known for, however, it is a way to boost people's lives for the better.
The team is collaborating with more than a hundred planning experts and has already envisioned several models. Alphabet's Sidewalk is also looking to consider hiring a third-party company to acquire the land space needed and would likely need a huge area which would accommodate many potential residents for the said project.
The company is reportedly eyeing surrounding areas close to Denver and Detroit for the location of choice to build the high-tech city. The real estate industry is likely to benefit a lot should the project push through. Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs has been successful with their LinkNYC initiative in making New York a public wifi urban zone, as per the publication.
Sidewalk's CEO Dan Doctoroff also revealed to developing a test district which would showcase Flow, which is an integrated system that can monitor human and vehicle congestion, according to the BusinessInsider. With the increasing interest in the Internet of Things concept, there is a good chance that Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs would reveal more updates on the project soon.
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