By Gavin Allen
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.
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.
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