2020 vision: A day in your life in 10 years time

It Is 2020, iPhones appear ancient and Tweeting seems as old-fashioned as sending a fax.

As we start one new decade, the science experts at BBC Focus magazine have revealed how technological advances will be shaping our lives as the next one comes into play.

So sit back and prepare to be amazed by a day in your life in 10 years' time...

6:45am

Your alarm clock goes off 15 minutes early because it is linked to the internet, and traffic reports predict delays due to a train strike.

The internet radio station streams the same music to every listener, but the HomeDJ service means that news, traffic and weather are local to you, and can be customised to provide the level of detail you want.

When you leave home, you carry on listening in your car - the first internet car radio was showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas back in 2009.

GPS data automatically selects the most relevant traffic news stream for you and updates your sat-nav.

7:45am

For breakfast, you grab an apple from a FrootStore bag. This is a plastic bag from the supermarket impregnated with a compound that inhibits ethylene, the naturally produced gas compound that encourages fruit to ripen.

The FrootStore holds everything from apples to avocados in a preripe condition. When you want to eat them, you take them out and put them in a FrootRipe bag, which emits ethylene, for a few hours.

It means every apple is in perfect condition when you bite into it, so there is much less waste.

And the core goes into a back door composter. By opting for a two-thirds size wheelie bin, you have saved 20% on your council tax bill.

7:50am

Your journey to work is by car - the public transport infrastructure hasn't improved much in the last decade.

It's now almost impossible to buy a new car that isn't a hybrid, uses regenerative braking (which charges the battery as you brake) and smart idling (it cuts the engine if you stop for more than a few seconds).

The hybrid revolution started with the Toyota Prius back in 1997. A report published in 2009 predicted that 35% of cars made in 2025 will be electric - 25% will be hybrids and 10% purely electric.

Service stations now have fastcharge points. But it's bad news if you still have an old gas-guzzler - rumour has it petrol could soon break the £4.50 per litre barrier.

9am

Fewer people spend all their working day in an office now, with many companies ditching call centres for distributed Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems.

Calls are routed to individual operators around the country via internet data lines, meaning that many of us can work from home, with flexible working hours.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics in 2005 showed how workers had already started migrating out of the office.

Back then, 3.1 million Brits worked mainly from home, up from 2.3 million in 1997.

You've driven into town today for a meeting with your project team at a coffee shop - a venue that has become an increasingly important part of working life.


Many cafes are now making clever use of acoustic materials that make the music loud in the public areas but quieter in the discreet booths.

This makes it easier to talk in the booths, and harder for others to eavesdrop on confidential conversations.

3pm

You spend all afternoon trying to get a copy of a controversial biography of the Chinese premier, hard copies of which were banned outright in China.

The electronic version you downloaded won't play and the web filter in the cafe's Wi-Fi connection is blocking forums discussing China's censorship of the world wide web. As China's economy has grown over the past decade, its attempts to control the internet have become more sophisticated.

Filters that block content the superpower objects to are being installed in applications and even hardware.

Eventually you send a carefully-worded email that finds its way past the filters to a colleague in Finland who sends you a link to a file-sharing website. It might work - once you get home.

5pm

On the way home you stop off at a pharmacy to pick up a FluCheck which you use to swab the inside of your nose. The single-use device detects the pres-ence of antigens on flu virus particles.

It takes just 20 minutes for the "lab-on-a-chip" to give you a result.

Back in 2009, to diagnose something like swine flu required a sample being sent off to a lab. But in 2020 super-fast diagnoses are common for lots of conditions, including prostate cancer, hepatitis, TB and diabetes.

6:30pm

All the checkouts at your local supermarket are self-service, apart from one "assisted checkout", intended for customers with disabilities, which is manned on demand. Back in 2009, a Tesco store in Northampton became the first completely self-service supermarket.

Most food is now labelled with "food miles" - some products even have a "carbon foodprint" indicating the total carbon emitted during both production and transportation.

6:45pm

Dinner is Bosnian meatballs with kljukusa because Jamie Oliver is currently touring Central Europe for his latest video podcast.

Several broadcasters now transmit programmes simultaneously through the aerial and the internet. Commercial TV revenues continue to fall as fewer people are prepared to sit through live adverts any more.

The line between the internet and TV began to blur in 2009, when the number of videos watched online increased by 47% in a year.

7:30pm

You check your LifeSaver account, which has all the audio and video you uploaded today, recorded by a camera built into your glasses. LifeSaver picks out the most significant moments and sends out a video stream to everyone signed up to receive them.

Lord Stephen Fry has three hours of LifeSaver video for today - or you can catch the weekly summary on the Celebrity LifePeeks website. You also catch up on today's news on your e-reader.

11pm

As you snuggle down in bed, your iPillow plays the next chapter of your current audiobook through flat speakers embedded inside it. The pillow also adjusts the volume based on your activity and posture - it even switches to gentle music when it senses you are nearly asleep.

11:30pm

As you sleep, wind and wave power supply electricity to the National Grid. Some of this pumps water into reservoirs in the recently opened hydroelectric power stations in Scotland, proposed in 2009. Tomorrow, this water will feed electricity into the National Grid when everyone switches on their kettles and toasters.

Combined with the photovoltaic cells you installed on your roof three years ago, more than 15% of your electricity now comes from green sources.

Thanks to your smart meter you can keep tabs on your total electricity consumption - having the TV on standby is a thing of the past.

Life in 2020

The future of "ubiquitous computing" has been heralded for decades. It sounds grandiose-computing, everywhere!-but ironically, a future of ubiquitous computing is one where computers actually go unnoticed. That's 2020. It is when Nicholas Negroponte's assertion in 1995 of "being digital" switches to "been digital" because we will have been there and done that. Kids who have grown up stealing free views of recent movie releases online or regularly chatting with a friend in Bangalore or Atlanta will be working adults in a world where the notion of "work" has changed because of digital technology. But it's no longer "technology" in 2020 anymore-it's just how we get things done.


Consider attempts by schools to quell mobile phone usage in the classroom. In many parts of Asia, where the mobile phone took hold sooner than in the US, schools have given up. To a student in Hong Kong, their mobile phone is as vital as the beating of their heart. The word "mobile" means your world can all "go" with you, and by 2020 it will be too hard to imagine going without. We won't carry today's angst of feeling tied to our mobile devices in an apologetic sort of way. Instead, it will be the accepted norm, an innate part of daily life, and will vanish within our collective consciousness.


But if technology and the ability to be connected disappear further into the background, what will occupy our foreground? A bit of the humanity we've always valued in the "real world." Legislators who are currently fixated on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education as the key to innovation will realise that STEM needs some STEAM-some art in the equation. We'll witness a return to the integrity of craft, the humanity of authorship, and the rebalancing of our virtual and physical spaces. We'll see a 21st-century renaissance in arts- and design-centered approaches to making things, where you-the individual-will take centre stage in culture and commerce.

The software industry is poised to embrace its craft heritage. By 2020 software will return to a cottage industry, with bespoke applications made by many, rather than today's industrialised, Microsoft-esque mass-production and distribution model. It will be part of a larger world movement to make things by hand, infused with emotion and integrity. This phenomenon is already becoming visible in the rise of the "apps" market for mobile phones. With few dominant players and close-to-zero distribution costs, practically anyone can "ship" an app on the iPhone, Android or BlackBerry. These apps are often built with care and attention to the design that big companies' offerings lack. Look at the exquisite quality made by game companies like Iconfactory; or the many iPhone apps like ToonPaint that focus on letting users make "hand-crafted" creative content on their phones.


Rather than be content to accept corporate anonymity, we will rediscover the value of authorship. In 2020 technology will continue to enable individual makers to operate in the same way that once only large corporations could do. Witness the growth of individuals as "brands-of-one" in the social media space, broadcasting their news in the same fashion as major media outlets, or in software apps marketplaces, where "Bob Schula" can hawk his wares right next to "Adobe Systems," and it's just as easy to buy hand-stenciled napkins from a seller on Etsy as it is to buy them from Crate & Barrel. You might say it is a return to learning to trust individuals again, instead of relying on an indirect connection to a product through trust in its brand. Certainly our trust in those brands is already being tested right now.

Digital metaphors will reconnect to their original physical sources as a way to recapture what has been lost in translation. A creative director friend of mine recently commented how he noticed that younger designers were absolutely captivated when he used tracing paper in layers to develop a concept over an existing printed photograph. They commented to him, "Wow! That's so fast. I could never make those layers in Photoshop so quickly." Today we fill folders on our computer desktop to the brim with absolutely no sense of scale, no notion of what is a "full" or "less full" folder. They may be more easily searched, but there's a reason why paper-based systems comfort us so well with their tacit communication of what is more vs. what is less. Unable to let this go, we will see many new designs that best leverage what is good in virtual with what is good in the physical world. The subtleties and greyness that we can so easily grasp off the screen will make their way on to it.

The last 20 years have been so full of technological change that technology and the digital world has become the dominant narrative in our consumer culture. Educators, legislators, futurists and social scientists can't help but fixate on it. As we become more accustomed to it, happily, some breathing room will open up for a different conversation about what we want back in our lives.

So, what will take technology's place? It begins with art, design and you: Products and culture that are made by many individuals, made by hand, made well, made by people we trust, and made to capture some of the nuances and imperfections that we treasure in the physical world.

Solar-powered Photobioreactor generates biofuel using algae

The architectural firm, Emergent Architecture, has designed a bioreactor system that is being envisioned to be installed in Perth. The Perth PhotoBioReactor will use colonies of red and green algae to generate biofuel.




The outer shells of the Photobioreactors are fiber-composite monocoque construction, pleated for stiffness. The Photobioreactors contain colonies of algae that require CO2 and light at the front end and generate hydrogen or biofuel at the other end.

The system is based on the technology developed by OriginOil which that allows for continued operation in shade and also in complete darkness through the use of a helix of lights inside each algae coil.



The electricity needed for the system to run is generated by thin-film solar transistors that are embedded in the transparent polycarbonate apertures. The system can be placed in different locations as a piece of art, and can help generate fuel for the masses as well.



.. from greentechaustralia.blogspot.com

Future Materials

Magnetic Ink
This ink, developed by New Jersey company LDP LLC, writes and dries normally but contains particles of iron, making it responsive to magnets and able to conduct electricity. The ink could be used to print circuits on paper.




Ceramic Cloth
Zircar Zirconia, Inc., a New York manufacturer of thermal products, created this cloth knit from ceramic fibers, which will insulate against extreme temperatures.




Flavor-changing Additives
Flavor-changing additives, developed by New Jersey–based Salvona Technologies, contain nanospheres encapsulated in larger microspheres. When the microspheres burst, one flavor is released. The rupture of the nanospheres, some time later, releases another flavor, creating a taste experience that changes over time.





Electronic Paper
Electronic paper, a thin, flexible display technology that reveals digital images in full color, was invented by Israeli company Magink. Inventables imagines that the material could be used to create a portable “origami DVD player,” which would unfold to reveal a big screen.





Conductive Velcro
This Velcro, manufactured by Aplix in North Carolina, conducts electricity, completing a circuit when the hook side comes into contact with the loop side. It could be used to create a soft switch in clothes, backpacks and other consumer products.




Translucent Concrete Tiles
A Hungarian architect invented these translucent concrete tiles that contain optical fibers, allowing light to pass through. They are now sold through his company Litracon Bt.




Colour Sensitive Glass Tiles
Glass tiles that change colour in response to temperature were created by California-based Moving Color. They have already used the tiles to create a shower with walls that change colour as the water hits them.





Anti-Graffiti Film
This antigraffiti film, a clear adhesive with a Teflon surface, is manufactured by Integument Technologies, in New York. Paint and ink applied to the film won’t stick and can be easily wiped off.




Stone paper
“Stone” paper, sold by Design & Source Productions, is made of calcium carbonate, making it more eco-friendly than wood-based paper.




Water Expanding Plastic
This plastic expands in water, maintaining its proportions. The material, manufactured by Texas-based Industrial Polymers, can be used to produce a cast for enlarging sculptures or fossils.




Anti-Fog Film
This durable antifog coating is the creation of Film Specialties in New Jersey. The coating’s hydrophilic properties means that water slides off the surface rather than turning to fog.




Water-soluble Glass
This water-soluble glass is blown and can break like regular glass but dissolves in water.




Magnetic Paint
This paint contains iron powder, making it magnetic. Several companies, including Kling Magnetics, Inc., and Krylon, make magnetic paint.




Compostable Stretch Fabric
This all-natural, stretchy fabric is made by the Swiss company Rohner Textil AG and contains wool and ramie. Unlike most stretch fabrics, which are made of synthetic materials like lycra, it can be fully composted.



Edible Glitter
Developed by Watson Inc. in Connecticut, this edible glitter can be added to food products.




Paper Honeycomb
This paper honeycomb is lightweight but strong. Developed by the Dutch company Honicel, it can be used in furniture and as packing material.

LED traffic lights in Taiwan

Red lights in Taiwan will soon be much greener. By 2011, all traffic lights on the small island republic will be fitted with efficient LED lights thanks to a NT $229 million (US $7 million) project set to begin next year. Almost half of all traffic lights in Taiwan already use LEDs; the remaining 420,000 traffic lights will be converted over three years, providing an estimated savings of 85% in power consumption.

In addition to saving greatly on energy costs, LED traffic lights last years (standard bulbs only last months), remain brighter longer and their higher contrast levels with sunlight allow them to be viewed from longer distances. Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs plans to continue the LED work and change street lamps to efficient bulbs once the traffic signal project is complete.

Thinking lights to revamp traffic

INDEPENDENT "thinking" traffic lights will judge the volume of cars, buses and trucks and respond immediately to keep vehicles flowing as part of advances being developed for the NSW Government.

Elevated video cameras, infra-red sensors and radar as well as weight-activated sensors will monitor the traffic at each intersection.

A trial of the free-thinking traffic lights, part of the Smart Transport and Roads (STaR) project, is ready to proceed at an Albion Park roundabout, south of Wollongong.

At present, the co-ordination of neighbouring traffic lights is pre-programmed for specific times of day and predicted traffic flow patterns, such as morning and evening peak hour. A single loop system underground can detect when traffic is waiting at the lights but cannot discern the number of vehicles waiting or other conditions.

The STaR initiative involves the Roads Traffic Authority and information and communications technology company NICTA, with funding from the Federal Government and backed by universities.

The STaR project system engineering manager, Glenn Geers, said massive changes to how drivers negotiate the 3500 intersections with lights across the state would occur over the next five to 10 years.

Further developments will allow neighbouring traffic lights to communicate with each other and take action to control changing traffic flows, ensuring time savings and environmental benefits.

Dr Geers said communication between vehicles and traffic control systems will eventually become two-way, once a critical mass of vehicles have wireless radio systems. Drivers will be informed of major delays, availability of spaces at parking stations and the running times of connecting buses and trains.

"The potential by 2030 is amazing," he said. "By then, if you wake up late for work it won't matter because your car has already received the latest traffic data via wireless infrastructure.

"A voice will sound in your car informing you [that you] have only 32 minutes to make it to your meeting and you will be in time based on prevailing conditions. Then during the journey it could tell you about an accident ahead … and your revised travel time. It will then examine other route options and could tell you the quickest one."

Burgerstein - Would you eat hamburger from the lab?

So what's for dinner in 2022? A new report released by Britain's Food Ethics Council last month identified some of the possibilities - more food grown in allotments, more functional foods - and in vitro meat, meaning meat that's been grown from animal stem cells as opposed to meat cut from a carcass.

When reports of meat grown experimentally in the lab by Dutch researchers first surfaced a few years ago it seemed a bit far fetched, but not any longer. Two years ago an international group of scientists formed the In Vitro Meat Consortium, and last year the Norwegian Food Research Institute hosted a conference to discuss the challenges of producing in vitro meat commercially. If it does reach supermarket shelves, say researchers, it could help solve a few problems, like lessening the impact of livestock production on the environment, helping to prevent foodborne diseases, and reducing the need for millions of animals to be factory farmed.

One organisation working to produce meat from cell cultures is New Harvest which makes it clear that the technology now being developed could create processed meats like hamburger or sausages, but that the know how to create an in vitro steak or a chop doesn't exist - at least, not yet.

The production method, according to New Harvest's website goes like this, 'the production of cultured meat begins by taking a number of cells from a farm animal and proliferating them in a nutrient-rich medium. Cells are capable of multiplying so many times in culture that, in theory, a single cell could be used to produce enough meat to feed the global population for a year. After the cells are multiplied, they are attached to a sponge-like "scaffold" and soaked with nutrients. They may also be mechanically stretched to increase their size and protein content. The resulting cells can then be harvested, seasoned, cooked, and consumed as a boneless, processed meat, such as sausage, hamburger, or chicken nuggets'.

Unnatural? Well, yes - but so is a lot of stuff that ends up in our shopping trolleys, including foods from animals that have often led very unnatural lives. And as Ondine Sherman, managing director of the animal advocacy organisation Voiceless points out, "A lot of people might find in vitro meat icky - but then keeping animals in captivity and slaughtering them ls is pretty icky too. For people who like meat - but not how it's produced - it could be a viable alternative."

Would you eat an in vitro burger?

Transport for all need not cost $600b: expert

A SWEEPING, multibillion-dollar transport plan, to be unveiled next week, would link almost every home, office and university in Sydney to upgraded train, tram and bus services within 30 years.

The discussion paper from a leading transport researcher, Garry Glazebrook, of the University of Technology, Sydney, proposes six new metro lines, a heavy rail link to the barely serviced suburbs of south-west Sydney, and trams serving the inner suburbs and Parramatta.

Six major bus ring routes would directly link minor centres without commuters having to divert through the city.

While Dr Glazebrook's plan would cost $40 billion, it averages just $1.4 billion a year, in addition to the current expenditure of $3.2 billion a year on public transport.

He says it is a fraction of the estimated $660 billion Sydneysiders would spend on car travel over the next three decades if mass transit is not upgraded.

His proposal would also allow a 25 per cent increase in peak-hour trains on the existing heavy rail system, which is groaning under a large increase in patronage.

The key to the Glazebrook plan - which has taken shape over the past five years, as the Carr, Iemma and Rees governments have unveiled, altered and abandoned three previous designs for better public transport - is to integrate all the different services.

Trams would be linked to metro stations, for example, to ensure passengers wait a peak-hour maximum of five minutes when changing modes.

Dr Glazebrook said his plan would slash travel times on journeys from the outer suburbs to the city. "Trip length is also a key factor," he writes.

"For short trips, comfort is not so important but high frequency is vital. For long trips, comfort and travel speed become important."

The plan would also increase services to Sydney's job-rich "global arc", which covers the commercial centres between Macquarie University in North Ryde and Sydney Airport, as well as the city's second central business district, in Parramatta.

He proposes rolling the plan out in three stages.

The first stage, between 2009 and 2016, would include building a metro link between Epping and Castle Hill, a metro link between Parramatta and Strathfield, and tram lines from Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill, Rozelle Bay to Drummoyne and White Bay, and Circular Quay to Central Station.

Two bus ring routes - from Manly to Bondi Junction, via Mosman, Drummoyne and Kensington, and from Dee Why to Brighton, via Frenchs Forest, Chatswood, Burwood and Rockdale - would start operating.

Phase one would also include the first stage of the south-west heavy rail link.

The second stage, from 2016 to 2026, would link the north-west and west metros, via the Sydney CBD, and include a fast heavy rail link from Chatswood to Wynyard. It would also extend tram lines into the eastern and southern suburbs and convert the underused Carlingford rail line for trams.

The final phase, between 2026 and 2036, would complete the heavy rail, metro, tram and bus networks, and enable a high speed rail link between Newcastle and Canberra, serving the Central Coast, the Southern Highlands and Wollongong. A key element of the plan is to provide 30,000 parking places at 40 interchanges located at strategic points on the road and rail networks, along with 220,000 secure bicycle and scooter places. Dr Glazebrook would fund the expansion of the network by a mix of fares, efficiency savings, congestion and parking levies, increases in land values around stations, and carbon trading.

He said he hoped the Federal Government would contribute through its infrastructure budget.


http://www.dab.uts.edu.au/research/outcomes/index.html

2 wheeled PUMA from Segway & GM

A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could lie in two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors and Segway.

The companies announced on Tuesday that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world.

The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.

"We're excited about doing more with less," said Jim Norrod, chief executive of Segway, the maker of electric scooters. "Less emissions, less dependability on foreign oil and less space."

The 136 kg prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway's characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It's designed to reach speeds of up to 56 kmh and can run 56 km on a single charge.

The companies did not release a projected cost for the vehicle, but said ideally its total operating cost — including purchase price, insurance, maintenance and fuel — would total between one-fourth and one-third of that of the average traditional vehicle.

Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development, and strategic planning, said the project is part of GM's effort to remake itself as a purveyor of fuel-efficient vehicles. If Hummer took GM to the large-vehicle extreme, Burns said, the PUMA takes GM to the other.

Ideally, the vehicles would also be part of a communications network that through the use of transponder and GPS technology would allow them to drive themselves. The vehicles would automatically avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars and therefore never crash, Burns said.

As a result, the PUMA vehicles would not need air bags or other traditional safety devices and include safety belts for "comfort purposes" only, he said.

Though the technology and its goals may seem like something out of science fiction, Burns said nothing new needs to be invented for it to become a reality.

"At this point, it's merely a business decision," he said.

Burns said that while putting that kind of communications infrastructure in place may still be a ways off for many American cities, the automaker is looking for a place, such as a college campus, where the vehicles could be put to use and grab a foothold in the market.

There's currently no timeline for production, Burns said.

National Broadband gets go ahead

The Federal Government and private sector will invest up to $43 billion over eight years in a super-fast national broadband network, in the ''single biggest infrastructure decision in Australia's history''.

In a bombshell decision this morning, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced that none of five bidders for the national network - including Optus and Melbourne group Acacia - were up to scratch.

Under the new plans, the funding for the network offering speeds of up to 100 megabits per second will be provided by a national broadband network corporation in which the Government will be the majority shareholder. The network will be operated separately from retail telcos such as Telstra and Optus.

Shares in Telstra are expected to plunge when the market opens this morning as the company's near monopoly grip on telecommunications comes to an end. The stock closed at $3.21 yesterday.

The fibre-to-the-premise network will run to 90% of homes and businesses. The Government will make an initial investment of $4.7 billion in the company but intends to sell its interest within five years after the network is fully operational. The network will be funded from Aussie Infrastructure Bonds while private sector investment in the new company will be capped at 49%.

The remaining homes and businesses will be reached via wireless and satellite technologies offering speeds of 12 megabits per second.

The proposal goes much further than the Government had previously planned as fibre-optic cables will now run all the way from telephone exchanges to homes and businesses. It had previously planned to lay cables only from exchanges to cabinets at the end of street corners.

In a major blow to Telstra, Mr Rudd said it was time ''to bite the bullet'' after years of neglect of the telecommunications sector.

''Years of failed policy have left Australia as a broadband backwater,'' he said.

He described it as the ''single biggest infrastructure decision in Australia's history''.

A report to the Government from an expert panel found none of the national bids ''offered value for money for Australian taxpayers''.

Telstra was dumped from the tender in early December after failing to meet a basic requirement, leaving Melbourne group Acacia, the SingTel-owned Optus, the Canadian telco Axia NetMedia, the Tasmanian Government and TransAct vying for the funding. The latter parties two made regional bids.

Telstra shares have fallen 22% since it was excluded from the tender.

The Government plans to start construction in Tasmania around the middle of the year.

Facing the loss of its near-monopoly on fixed-line telecommunications, Telstra is expected to fight in the courts any attempt by the Government to force it to relinquish its grip.

Some have suggested the project could be delayed by five to 10 years by Telstra using legal action to prevent the access required to its copper-wire network to complete the project.

However, the Government today made clear it would change legislation to prevent Telstra from jeopardising the success of a national network.

Since it was dumped from the tender in early December, Telstra has been promoting its ''Plan B'', which includes plans to spend about $300 million increase speeds on its Melbourne cable network.

The alternative strategy entails shifting fixed-line customers onto its cable network and third-generation NextG mobile network.

World Builder

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

World Builder, a lovely short by visual effects specialist Bruce Branit, takes on a substantial and heady topic: it basically imagines the future of imagining itself. Branit is a highly accomplished digital artist -- you might recognise his handiwork on recent episodes of TV's Lost.

Outlander: Vikings vs. Aliens :)

Last weekend we went to see Outlander which was a vikings vs aliens geekerific splendourfest.

Most of the film takes place in olden time viking laden earth, but there are several interesting detours into the 'backstory', which takes place in a hi-tech, space-age alien environment. I want to say 'paradoxically', but it just actually isn't. That's a pity because it's a really cool word.

Probably quite obviously, this was my choice, and I really enjoyed it.

Outlander scores 7/10.

The future of the watch?

The cell phone is like some kind of pocket-size Death Star, moving through the gadget universe and destroying all in its path. First, PDAs. Then cameras. Then media players, GPS devices and more. One of its forgotten casualties is the wristwatch. Don't look now, but wristwatches are poised for a comeback.

The reason? Wristwatches are now trying to beat cell phone at their own game: Convergence.

People, especially young people, have found wristwatches redundant because their cell phones tell the time. But a new generation of wristwatches turns the tables and feature full cell phone functionality.

Cell phone wristwatches have been lurking at the fringe of mainstream computing for probably a decade or so. But, suddenly, they're appearing in higher numbers, better form factors and in more usable configurations. Plus, they're getting less dorky and more cool.

LG unveiled recently its LG GD910 watch phone, which like the iPhone is all screen with virtual, on-screen buttons. The GD910 has a camera, so you can do real videoconferencing like Dick Tracy. It supports MP3 files and Bluetooth.



Another new contender is the sWaP Mobile Phone Watch. It surfs the Web, plays music and video, takes pictures and more. Data is stored on a standard MicroSD card.

But the most promising and, well, most awesome new cell phone wristwatch is the Phenom SpecialOps Cellphone Watch. The watch has a cell phone keypad on the strap, and, like the others above supports Bluetooth, MicroSD, MP3s and more. It even comes with a tiny, pull-out stylus for using the mini touch screen.

Even more interesting is that the Phenom SpecialOps watch is just one of many cell phone wristwatches for sale by Phenom. They've got sports cell phone wristwatches, business cell phone wristwatches and even watches made for girls and women -- and accessories and peripherals to go with them! (They've also got a cell phone wristwatch that defies description.)

I think this could be a real trend. A cell phone wristwatch lets you basically just not carry a cell phone -- and still be able to make and receive calls, take pictures and entertain yourself on the subway.

LG

The LG-GD910 phone will go on sale first in Europe and builds on a prototype shown at CES 2008.
the center of the watch face is a 1.4-inch touchscreen display that is used for most interaction. It is used as the keypad when making a call, for example. There are also buttons down the side of the phone's body.

The WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) phone supports the latest 7.2Mbps (megabits per second) HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) data system, so downloads should be fast. It can also make video calls via a small camera above the top right corner of the screen.

Other features include Bluetooth, an MP3 player, a speakerphone and a text-to-speech function. The handset is also waterproof.

SWAP watch

CAST out your mobile phones (but keep the SIM card, it’s quite important) and get ready for a new dawn in mobile technology.

The sWap Watch has arrived.

For too long the mobile phone has dominated the landscape of techno communications, while the trusty watch was left alone on the bedside table, gathering dust while we, its selfish masters, galavanted from meeting to meeting, keeping time with our trusty pocket sized PDA’s. The mobile phone heartlessly usurped the watch of its fundamental duties but the ‘sWap Watch’ is out for revenge and will not stop until the mobile phone has gone the way of the sun dial and the Dodo.

The tables have now been turned. The sWap Watch doesn’t just double as a mobile phone – it’s like having a multimedia centre strapped to your wrist, and all without the crushing shoulder strain.

Want to check your emails? Surf the internet?

Listen to music? Take Pictures? Watch a movie?

MAKE a movie? It does ALL of these. It’s in danger of completely eradicating boredom, revolutionising every minute of your day into a potential fun zone. The next time you’re stuck on the train you’ll just need to check out the 1.5 inch screen on your wrist for an instant fix of entertainment that’ll turn your commute into a pleasure cruise rather than a chore. The memory card slot allows you to insert a Micro SD card to upgrade the already impressive 512MB memory to a whopping 2GB. With all that memory you’ll have no problem storing all the MP3s and movies you’d need for a short jaunt.

If you really get bored (and with this watch, it’s hard to see how you could) you could even check the time (from one of the many different watch faces stored in it’s memory) or make a phone call.

The watch will accept most SIM cards, so upgrading is hassle free and making calls couldn’t be simpler – just plug in the hands free kit and you’re good to go. If you really want to go one step beyond and banish those pesky wires along with your mobile phone then you’ll be ecstatic to hear that the watch is Bluetooth compatible. You won’t even have to fork out for the headset as it’s included in the package.

Phenom

functions as an MP3/MP4 player through a MicroSD port. Other features include a 1.3" touchscreen display, Bluetooth, speakerphone, numeric keypad and a videocamera.

Yes, this cellphone watch handles video when the iPhone still doesn't.

... The future has arrived and it’s a wristwatch.

Backyard bliss may soon be a memory

THERE are two Sydneys of the future. In one we build on empty paddocks 45 kilometres from the CBD, where workers wake before dawn to spend hours in traffic driving to work.

In the other we abandon the McMansions of Kellyville - and our cars - in favour of high-rise apartment living and subway transport.

The state's transport boffins want us to choose the latter in a new blueprint for the city that relies on an underground metro. The Federal Government backs it, too.

The rationale for moving away from large houses on large blocks in far-flung suburbs to inner-city living is cost - both economic and environmental - transport and planning experts say.

In an era of peak oil and climate change, where higher petrol, water and electricity prices will significantly increase the cost of living, we can no longer afford suburban sprawl, they argue.

That does not mean the death of the backyard and the cul-de-sac. But it would mean fewer of them.

The debate about higher-density living has been going on for decades, but every time it is raised there is a community backlash, says Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University, a former NSW Sustainability Commissioner and now a member of the advisory board for Infrastructure Australia.

Newman says resistance to high-rise living comes mostly from Anglo-Saxons worried crime will rise and house prices fall.

"That has … been shown to be nonsense," he says.

Apartment complexes can be designed to encourage a sense of community, safety and provide for affordable housing, because "design is everything".

"If you want to make a slum, you can … density doesn't wreck or create an area, in itself."

Research by Newman and the planning and infrastructure consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff found Sydney's suburban sprawl costs the economy and the environment twice as much as inner-city housing. The cost of infrastructure, transport, health and greenhouse gases for new housing built on a city's fringe is worth $653 million for every 1000 new dwellings, compared with $309 million for inner-city development, they say.

For every 1000 housing blocks, the Government could save $85 million on power, water, sewerage, schools and hospitals if it built close to central business districts rather than on the city's fringe, and $250 million in transport costs could be saved in 50 years.

That amounts to an $85 million subsidy to developers on the fringe, Newman says.

During the past five years Sydney's middle-ring suburbs, such as Liverpool, Hurstville and Blacktown, have joined fringe suburbs in what Griffith University researchers describe as a new landscape of oil and mortgage stress. Car use, income and mortgage repayments have combined to affect more than 40 per cent of Sydney's suburbs, according to work done by the university's Jago Dodson and Neil Snipe. This comes as the State Government has backed away from big rail projects in the north-west and south-west of the city, areas crying out for public transport.

If at least some of our residential housing must be high-rise - and planners tell us there is a market - can we trust the Government to sell the idea to the community? That could depend on whether this Labor administration can restore the community's trust in its relationship with developers.

Until voters believe planning reforms are for their benefit instead of developers', they will fight to keep the suburban dream alive.

Get ready Sydney: high-rise suburbs coming

SYDNEY will be reinvented as a high-density metropolis serviced by mass-transit subways under a transport blueprint being developed by senior state and federal government bureaucrats.

Powerful new legislation underpinning a proposed metro network costing $13 billion will enable transport and planning officials to reshape the inner suburbs of Sydney, paving the way for apartment towers as high as 15 storeys as well as large-scale retail and office blocks.

To justify the multibillion-dollar investment, tens of thousands more people would have to live and work within walking distance of the proposed Parramatta Road metro stations, according to planning officials behind the overhaul.

Heritage inner-west suburbs such as Glebe, Leichhardt, Rozelle and Camperdown are to be among the first to face radical changes should both the $8.1 billion West Metro underneath Parramatta Road and the $4.8 billion CBD Metro go ahead.

A joint state and federal government study into the West Metro, leaked to the Herald, revealed it would "significantly reduce travel times between western Sydney and the Sydney CBD".

"It would also provide significant support for transit-oriented development, urban revitalisation and services to new rail markets," it said.

The controversial population targets in the inner west, set in the State Government's planning blueprint, the Metropolitan Strategy, would be eclipsed by new targets to support a mass-transit subway.

"It is not to say the Metro Strategy is wrong but the world has shifted," said a senior state planning official. "The next round of the Metro Strategy will have to consider greater in-fill [urban density]."

But in the face of anti-development campaigns in the inner west, the state Labor Government may have trouble selling the high-rise living plans to nervous western Sydney MPs.

The Transport Minister, David Campbell, acknowledged that an overhaul of the areas serviced by the metro was a central concern for the State Government.

"One of the main benefits of this corridor would see the revitalisation of urban growth and employment for communities along Parramatta Road," he said.

Late last year, a team of advisers from Infrastructure Australia took a bus tour to one such location, MarketPlace shopping centre on Marion Street, Leichhardt, to scout the location for a metro station.

A new transport authority, quietly legislated by the State Government in late November, has been given unprecedented powers to develop the land above and around proposed metro stations.

On November 26, a Sydney Metro Authority was created by a special amendment to the Transport Administration Act. It still does not have a board or chief executive but it has new powers "to carry out development, or facilitate, manage or finance development, on land located on, or in the vicinity of, metro railway systems". RailCorp has no equivalent power.

Concentrating housing around train stations is a well established policy in cities around the world to ease congestion, prevent suburban sprawl and reduce the cost of services such as water, power and transport.

The Rudd Government is leading a new push to make Australian cities look more like London, Tokyo and Singapore, which have twice as many people and jobs per hectare as Sydney.

Infrastructure Australia, a federal body set up to recommend funding for transport projects across the country, said in a recent influential report that residential and commercial densities in Sydney were too low.

"Increasing densities around rail stations can increase the economic and other benefits that might flow from the considerable public investment in urban rail projects. However, this is an area where governments have a mixed record," it said. "Much more can be done to increase densities around transport nodes. A strong, proactive approach needs to be taken to integrate land use, zoning and planning policies more effectively."

One member of the Infrastructure Australia board, Professor Peter Newman, said in an interview with the Herald that Sydney and Melbourne could no longer afford to exist as two-tiered cities where the wealthy had access to transport and the poor struggled on the fringes.

"That is one of my themes, that we stop cities developing into eco enclaves surrounded by Mad Max suburbs," he said.

"If you want to go with the metro, you would need to think about higher densities, and in particular, high densities around the train stations.

"They will be apartments, there is no doubt about that. Chatswood is the best example but a lot of people will find that hard to take."

A spokesman for the Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally, said there would continue to be a mix of housing styles in the city, including single dwellings, terraces, townhouses and low-, medium- and high-rise apartment buildings. "Home purchasers will continue to make choices between these housing styles which suit their personal circumstances," said the spokesman.

Two previous government plans in 2001 and 2005 tried to force councils to boost population throughout the inner west and revitalise Parramatta Road. Both failed in the face of strong community opposition.

Initially, 130,000 dwellings of up to six storeys were to be built along the road at a rate of 4000 a year. Four years later that was cut to 70,000.

The 2005 Metropolitan Strategy declared 30 per cent of new residents would be housed in greenfield areas in the north-west and south-west of Sydney, serviced by extensions to the CityRail network. The remainder would be squeezed into existing suburbs.

But since the former premier, Morris Iemma, dumped the rail expansion in favour of a metro network, the Metropolitan Strategy has fallen by the wayside. Now, as Sydney continues to grow, the argument that established suburbs should house more people has gained currency.

Ku-ring-gai could be seen as a model for how these new densities could be achieved. Last year, the Government usurped council planning powers to allow a dramatic increase in building heights along CityRail's North Shore line. Two-storey shopping strips like Roseville and Turramurra will be overshadowed by mixed-use developments as high as seven to nine storeys, and Gordon will have 15-storey towers.

Technically, the Department of Planning remains the consent authority for any such development. "Any changes will be managed in the context of existing planning processes, including consultation with local communities," Mr Campbell said.

Transport officials behind the new railway line successfully lobbied to have the power enshrined in legislation, creating new tensions with the Department of Planning.

The legislation makes it easier to package property development with private sector construction contracts to help finance the railway line.

One source told the Herald funds from property development were better spent, however, on local amenities that could include anything from bicycle lockers to libraries.

"It is better off to help the amenity around the stations," he said.

Go west - it will take you only 27 minutes to the city

THE revolutionary $8.1 billion West Metro will transport up to 30,000 people an hour from Parramatta to the CBD in less than 27 minutes, stopping at nine underground stations, according to secret feasibility work being undertaken by the state and federal governments.

Thirty single-deck trains each hour would run through twin tubes underneath Parramatta Road if sufficient state, federal and private sector funds emerged in coming months to pay for the project.

The metro would link with the Rees Government's promised CBD Metro, costed at $4.8 billion, to create the first of what the state's top transport planners hope will be a city-wide network of modern, driverless subways.

The two final routes being considered for the project, obtained by the Herald, include metro stations at Granville or Rosehill, Auburn or West Homebush Bay, Burwood, Five Dock, Leichhardt, Camperdown and Sydney University.

There will also be multi-million-dollar transport interchanges constructed around metro stops built at Parramatta, Olympic Park, Camellia, Strathfield and Central Station, where passengers can switch between CityRail, metro and bus services.

A separate transport bureaucracy, the Sydney Metro Authority, has been given unprecedented powers to redevelop land around stations, raising high-rise apartments along Parramatta Road to help boost the project's viability.

Senior government officials have confirmed the target travel time from Parramatta to Central is 24 to 27 minutes. CityRail services now take between 26 and 32 minutes, but the metro would operate via all stops at such a high frequency that commuters would not require a timetable. It would also capture big inner-west catchments in areas such as Five Dock, Leichhardt and Camperdown, which are not directly serviced by the existing rail network.

The Transport Minister, David Campbell, said station locations had not been finalised.

"There is no final determination on alignment or stations for the project and this will only be determined after more detailed planning, should the Federal Government fund the project through Infrastructure Australia," he said.

Parramatta Road is one of the country's most congested arteries, with average vehicle speeds during the morning peak just 28 kmh, down from 33 kmh in 2004. A draft of the joint NSW and Commonwealth feasibility study claims the new line could dramatically ease this gridlock.

"It has the potential to significantly reduce travel times between western Sydney and the Sydney CBD, and to relieve congestion in the western corridor and the broader rail network," the study said.

There are 1300 trips operated by Sydney Buses along Parramatta Road each weekday, carrying more than 50,000 commuters. The CityRail Western line carried 35 million passengers in the 12 months to December 2007, with more than 32,000 people on 24 trains during the 70-minute height of the morning peak.

"A significant number of [these] services exceed 'crush capacity' of 135 per cent, with loads often up to 180 per cent," the feasibility study said.

The now-shelved North-West Metro was to have carried 50 million passengers per year under Victoria Road. Senior transport planners hope the Parramatta Road project might garner similar figures.

The study said the metro was the Government's central tool to combat the strangulation of the existing rail network.

"The recent strong growth rates in peak period rail patronage, combined with future growth, will see capacity exceeded on several parts of the CityRail network," it said.

The West Metro is a key contender among the 94 projects being considered by the Rudd Government's Infrastructure Australia, which will award about $8 billion to transport, water and energy projects around the country from the Building Australia fund.

The Herald has been told, however, that Infrastructure Australia has been sorely disappointed with the lack of detailed analysis undertaken in NSW for both the West Metro and the CBD Metro.

If the metro fails to meet the mark, the Prime Minister would be forced to announce another road, a duplication of the clogged M5 East, as the Commonwealth's project in Sydney - a tunnel that would do nothing for urban congestion.

Robot soldiers to get a kinder software side

WASHINGTON: The US military is planning to build robot soldiers that would not be able to commit war crimes.

The army and the navy have hired experts in the ethics of building machines to prevent the creation of an amoral Terminator-style killing machine. By 2010 the US will have spent $4 billion ($6.1 billion) on research into "autonomous systems", the military jargon for robots, on the basis that they would not succumb to fear or the desire for vengeance that afflicts front-line soldiers.

A British robotics expert has been recruited by the navy to advise on building robots that would not violate the Geneva Conventions.

Colin Allen, a scientific philosopher at Indiana University, has just published a book summarising his views titled Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.

He said: "The question they want answered is whether we can build automated weapons that would conform to the laws of war. Can we use ethical theory to help design these machines?"

Pentagon chiefs are concerned by studies of combat stress in Iraq that showed that a high proportion of front-line troops supported torture and retribution against enemy combatants. Ronald Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech university, who is working on software for the army, has written a report that concludes that robots, while not "perfectly ethical in the battlefield" can "perform more ethically than human soldiers".

He said that robots "do not need to protect themselves" and "they can be designed without emotions that cloud their judgment or result in anger and frustration with ongoing battlefield events".

Airborne drones are already used in Iraq and Afghanistan to launch air strikes and robotic vehicles are used to disable roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices.

But this generation of robots are all remotely operated by humans. Researchers are now working on "soldier bots", which would be able to identify targets and distinguish between enemy forces and soft targets, like ambulances or civilians. Their software would be embedded with rules of engagement.

Dr Allen applauded the decision. "It's time we started thinking about the issues of how to take ethical theory and build it into the software that will ensure robots act correctly rather than wait until it's too late."

.. from smh

The Oracle concept watches by Designer Andy Kurovets mixes time with Chinese philosophy.
The philosophy in particular is I Ching and it is a symbol system used to identify order in chance events. You can read about it more over here.

Andy adds a hexagram generator into the watch so that you can generate your own future. It is rather 'confusion' and would require an understanding of I Ching.

Smart cities

Move over, Industrial Revolution: there's been a technological revolution that has been sweeping up everything in its path for the past two decades and changing society irrevocably in the process.

Let's call it the Digital Revolution - it is the impact of increasing computer power, cheaper silicon chips and a massive convergence of wireless communication for phone, internet and broadcast.

This revolution has changed the way we communicate, the way we travel, the way we live - and even the way that we use public space.

Our cities are increasingly moving from a collection of inanimate buildings to a living, technologically sophisticated entity.

And the smartest and most successful cities are those that combine design features that prevailed centuries ago with innovative applications of networked technology.

Bill Mitchell, a professor of architecture and media arts and sciences at the world-renowned MIT Design Lab in the US, points out that technology does not operate in isolation when it comes to changing cities."

Technology creates possibilities, then social forces and economic forces and human desires really drive what then happens to cities," he says.

As computers become cheaper and more powerful, and free software begins to rival expensive commercial alternatives, the economic barrier to the digital revolution is slowly disappearing.

Add cheap mobile phones, wireless internet and inexpensive international call rates through VoIP and the notion of "the world village" creeps closer to realisation.

Low-cost digital technology makes global networking accessible to everyone - and it has had a rapid and sweeping impact."

Networks like the internet have grown in a grassroots way without the huge amount of topdown planning needed by other infrastructures," Professor Mitchell says.

This has been a boon for some developing nations, allowing them to introduce rapid technological change.

In Bangladesh, a development project that introduced very cheap mobile phones to people in remote rural villages, has made a huge impact on local economies.

About 15% of people there now own a mobile and wireless internet is making significant inroads into rural villages that had never before had access to phones of any kind.

While rural villages in developing nations are fast-tracking their connectivity and rapidly taking to change, introducing change to cities in the developed world is in many ways a bigger challenge.

Professor Mitchell explains that cities have evolved over thousands of years developing complex networks from transportation to water and sewerage, to electrical grids and, now, information networks."

The functionality of any place is jointly constructed by its boundaries and its networks," he says. "The focus has shifted from the preindustrial era, where the world was dominated by boundaries, to the present where networks and connections dominate our use of space."

He says the most recent development in the evolution of the city is the impact of widely available wireless networks.

Using mobiles and other portable devices such as notebooks, people are constantly "connected"; they can access information, browse the internet, make a phone call and send email."

Most of us are never disconnected these days and that's a fundamentally new thing," Professor Mitchell says.

"When the internet first began it was kind of a stand-alone thing but now it's basically locked into everything that we do. Retailing is an obvious example of this. You can log into Amazon from anywhere in the world to browse or buy books, but at the same time there's a huge logistical system on the ground of warehouses and transportation and so on, which all now works together as one system."

He points out that this generates a new type of building: the large regional distribution centre. Many of these warehouses are almost fully automated and these epitomise the integration of the digital and the physical worlds.

"Every time you buy something on Amazon, something physical goes somewhere," Professor Mitchell says. Instead of people going into a shop to buy a book from a carton delivered to a retailer, a forklift in a remote warehouse grabs just one book, which is wrapped and posted.

When there are millions of these transactions taking place every day, patterns of transportation and distribution are irrevocably changed and cities must change to meet this.



The fully wired city is yet to occur in Australian cities, says Tom Kvan, who heads the architecture department at Melbourne University.

"Australia is still lagging behind on network technology compared to northern Europe and North America," he says.

Professor Kvan believes there are some fundamental reasons why cities here have been slow to adopt changes such as universal wi-fi and remote workplaces.

"Because our cities are so spread out, people are still commuting to their work rather than working from home or from a local centre," he says.

Professor Mitchell points out that until recently, office workers truly worked in an office. But work has become increasingly less tethered to a specific location. The wireless notebook and mobile phone allow you to work just about anywhere that has coverage of phone and/or wireless internet.

Many people have structured their work lives so that everything they need to do their work is available and accessible universally and this is changing the nature of our cities.

"Public space begins to operate in a different kind of way," Professor Mitchell says. "Public space is not only public physical space but it's public cyberspace."

He says in architecture there is currently a fundamental shift away from a dominance of private space towards public space.

"There's a great increase in demand for unassigned informal space that you can just appropriate it as you need it; space for little coffee shops, more usable space set in nooks and crannies and other public space where you can just sit down and do some work."

As the director of design and urban environment for the City of Melbourne, Rob Adams is heavily involved in the future planning for Melbourne.

He believes there are a number of elements that make a smart city, but the most important is sustainability.

"The smart cities of the future will be cities that not only have technological advances but that work with the environment to create a good living space for the people who use them, one that can be sustained," he says.

Mr Adams believes the strong divisions between work space, public space, recreation space and living space that currently characterise modern Australian cities such as Melbourne must change in the future.

"Nobody goes to the big commercial office blocks for a good night out," he says, adding that these areas might be deserted outside business hours but they continue to occupy space and use resources.

The time for the deep division between commercial and residential functions in cities has passed, he says - and many experts agree.

US architect Arrol Gellner argues that modern architecture is responsible for breeding urban isolation, blaming postwar planners who saw mixed-use neighbourhoods as old-fashioned, developing sharply drawn boundaries between residential and commercial zones.

"Under this doctrine, neighbourhoods - once self-contained social units - were quickly replaced by vast and isolated housing tracts bereft of services and accessible only by automobile," Mr Gellner says.

"The result was sprawling yet lifeless suburbs by day, forlorn downtowns by night, and a previously unknown schism between work and life in general."

The architect is scathing about the gated communities that abound in the US where "vast but barely utilised houses stand sequestered among acres of setback land".

Meanwhile, he says, Americans spend hours trapped on freeways where walls on either side shut out any view of the world beyond.

Urban sprawl generates all sorts of logistical issues, not the least of which is sustainable transport.
Professor Kvan says that here Australia also lags behind Europe.

"In Europe, as you look across the urban landscape there are vast numbers of small cars, but you don't see that here in Australia. People still are driving large vehicles."

He says densely populated European cities offer limited parking facilities and drivers value the ability to wedge into small spaces whereas here, where parking ratios are more generous, small cars are seen as less safe.

But with global concern about climate change on the rise, Professor Kvan believes this may soon change, adding that growing inner-city density will also have an impact.

"Over the past 15 years Melbourne has experienced a dramatic growth in inner city population - from 15,000 to about 80,000. That brings an increasing acceptance of smaller cars because the commuting distances are much smaller," he says.



Professor Kvan believes that car-sharing will also increase.

"The technology is not the issue," he says, adding that cultural change is needed to reduce urban sprawl.

The City of Melbourne's Mr Adams agrees that urban sprawl is unsustainable and says the solution is to move people closer together. "To make cities work you need higher density of population."

He says the technology to make high-density living work in a sustainable way already exists.
Solar collection, water harvesting and reuse, and sustainable urban transport systems together with energy-efficient housing are all keys to this, Mr Adams says.

"We have moved from the industrial revolution to the ecological revolution," he says.

Mr Adams was heavily involved with the development of Australia's greenest office building, Council House 2 (CH2), which opened in 2006 on Little Collins Street to international acclaim.

The building consumes just 15% of the energy and about 30% of the water of its non-green peers and is an example of bio-mimicry architecture, where a building uses sustainable technology copied from the natural world.

A facade of solar-powered sun-tracking louvres shade the western side of the 10-storey building and a variety of other technologies combine to control temperature; such as thermal mass and vaulted ceilings, windows that open at night to cool the building and wind turbines that draw hot air outside.

In the basement, sewer water is treated and filtered on site to reduce mains water supply. Throughout the building, light is filtered through plants.

"Technologies like on-site water purification means that as you increase population density in the city, you don't have to build new infrastructure," Mr Adams says.

He believes that much of the change can happen through policy - such as encouraging building owners to collect solar energy by paying more for power put into the grid through the day and discounting power drawn down at night - reducing the base load on the power station supplying the city.

Mr Adams says that one of the smartest cities he has seen is Barcelona, which is an old city with a high population density.

"The entire city is built to seven storeys," he says. "The whole roof of the city can be a solar collector so there is democratic access to solar energy, which is the technology of the future."

Mr Adams says that much of that city's advantages lie in "blindingly simple" configurations in which public life and private life are well defined.

Streets are set out with buildings surrounding a private shared courtyard so pedestrians walk around the periphery of the block.

Simple controls in cities such as a mix of street frontages and a combination of major streets with lanes and arcades can make a big difference, Mr Adams says.

"Smart cities are more about smart thinking than about smart technology," he says.

found at smallbusiness.smh.com.au