I.B.M. has designed a new operations center for the city of Rio de Janeiro, coordinating all kinds of functions under one roof. The company hopes the project will lead to a huge worldwide business. However, such approaches revealed many shortcomings, most notably the lack of civic engagement. I
2010, Rio de Janeiro launched the Integrated Centre of Command and Control, engineered by IBM. It’s a large control room for the city, which collects real-time information from cameras and myriad sensors suffused in the urban fabric.
It is as if they thought of the city simply as a “computer in open air”. These approaches led to several backlashes in the research and academic community.
Source: I.B.M. Takes ‘Smarter Cities’ Concept to Rio de Janeiro – The New York Times
