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Emerging Technologies I Didn’t Think Local Gov Was Looking At

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I just came across an interesting article from Public CIO at GovTech.com , it covers six technologies that I didn’t think local government could be taking an early look at:

  1. Robotics – The idea of robots working at DMV is well… maybe a welcome innovation for many citizens Smile but to be fair my local DMV has improved 100 fold.
    • “The sense of a robot going around doing a task — we’ll see some of that, but I think we’ll see it be less overt,” Reichental said. “The mechanics and intelligence will be built into everyday tasks.”
  2. 3-D Printing – everybody is doing 3-D Printing now a days, I wonder if the feds will soon start printing 3-D currency soon – well they are 3-D Printing already
    • “The federal government uses 3-D printing to keep manufacturing in-house and shorten the production cycle. A concept conceived by an engineer in the morning can be held in the hand after lunch.”
  3. Online Electric Vehicles – This technology has been available for decades the question really is why was it used 10 years ago… oh wait… petroleum, I forgot!
    • Here is dumb idea: “embedded charging infrastructure under the roads” – yeah lets rip all the highways and implant charging devices! NOT! How about the skin for our cards collecting solar energy, sensors converting engine heat into electricity.
  4. Remote Sensors – This is definitely a powerful tool. It is more than just readers it is us humans with our mobile devices also. The combination of sensors with human crowdsourcing can yield tremendous accuracy in data collection.
    • “… over a period of time, you’re going to see the same kind of mass decentralized sensing platforms for doing all kinds of different data gathering in cities.”
    • “Governments around the world are turning to remote sensing to perform old jobs more cheaply and do new jobs that hadn’t been previously conceived of.”
    • “And in San Francisco, researchers are experimenting with how to build an earthquake early warning system from a network of smartphones. — Colin Wood,”
  5. Virtual Currency – Forget printing 3-D Money Smile … Enters Bitcoin – Exits Bitcoin as the US Gov is already making sure it doesn’t make it.
    • “…and people just create more currency in an uncontrolled way …” Cockrill said.” – I want it NOW!!!
    • “Government leaders likely won’t support a payment system that allows secrecy and anonymity for suspect purchases.”
  6. Video Facial Recognition – Fantacyland… but at the rate computing power is increasing these devices will be decorating our streets like light posts. When it works!
    • “An April 2013 Atlantic Weekly article claimed that the FBI’s partially developed video surveillance and facial recognition technology wasn’t helpful during the Boston Marathon bombing investigation. Investigators relied on traditional closed circuit TV surveillance footage and eyewitness accounts.”  -- Duh!!

Check the full article at www.govtech.com

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