Parking 2.0

The Economist presents the best overview I’ve seen yet of the future of wirelessly connected devices in A world of connections.

“New wireless technologies will link not just people but lots of objects too. That will be tremendously useful… but getting there will be tricky”

It looks like the introductory article is available at the link above, but for the whole thing you’ll need to be a subscriber, or you can purchase the magazine on the newsstand.

A new report of the US Department of Transportation entitled Advanced Parking Management Systems: A Cross-Cutting Study is available online in web and PDF format. I’ve just skimmed the report so far, and while I’ve noticed a number of inaccuracies, missing vendors, and missing projects, it still seems like a useful overview.

Normally I’ll keep this blog to discussion of parking in general, but I can’t resist letting you know that Spark Parking has been featured in an article on the Discovery Channel website entitled Find Parking With Your Cell Phone. Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging…

University students developed the Volvo Cars self-parking system, demonstrated in this video (I’m constantly impressed with the abilities of university students!). I know Toyota has a similar system, already available in Japan. Judging from the parallel parking challenges I see many drivers experiencing here in San Francisco, these systems need to be available here now!

Sensors magazine describes today’s wireless sensors as Teeny Tiny Energy Hogs. As we look forward to the remarkable benefits that “pervasive sensing” can provide, we need to continue making progress on powering all these devices. The previous waves of computing platforms (mainframes, mini computers, PCs, and mobile phones) have all benefitted from either permanent or regular connections to wired power sources. The next wave of wireless sensors will be the first that is expected to function entirely (or nearly so), for many months or years at a time, on stored electricity. Thus, I’m delighted to read in this article that there are a number of efforts underway to solve these sensor power problems!

This story from the BBC describes the use of wireless sensor networks for monitoring coral reef health. Why’d I’d pick this out of all the wireless sensor networking stories out there? Because my wonderful sister Lucy is getting her Masters degree in Marine Biology at James Cook University, where the reef sensor project is based!

Engadget, one of my favorite “fun” blogs (as opposed to “work” blogs) has a great post on the high tech in use at the recent Super Bowl, including an interesting sensor network.