Search results for ""author anthony m. townsend""

Anthony Townsend argues that the driverless car is a red herring. When self-driving technology infects buses, bikes, delivery vans and buildings, a wild future awaits. Technology will transform life behind the wheel into a hi-definition video game that makes our ride safer, smoother and more efficient. Meanwhile, autonomous vehicles will turbocharge our appetite for the instant delivery of goods, making the future as much about moving stuff as it is about moving people. Companies will link the automated machines that move us to the cloud, raising concerns about mobility monopolies and privatisation of “the curb”. Our cities and towns will change as we embrace new ways to get around. Ghost Road explains where we might be heading with driverless vehicles, and the choices we must make as societies and individuals to shape that future.

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Today more people live in cities than in the countryside, mobile broadband connections outnumber fixed ones and machines outnumber people on a new Internet of Things. In Smart Cities Anthony Townsend explores the question of what happens when computers take over the city in this era of mass urbanisation and technological ubiquity, taking a look at the people and forces that have transformed the design of cities and information technologies. From the great industrial metropolises of the nineteenth century to today’s megacities, new technologies have been invented to address the challenges posed by human settlements of ever-greater size and complexity. As a new generation of technology barons, entrepreneurs, mayors and civic coders shape our future, Smart Cities explores their motivations, aspirations and shortcomings, offering a new civics for building communities.

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