MegaCities - Digital Cities

Cell phones that show the user’s location and send out calls to friends—the smart city of the future will feature a host of information and communication technologies, including pocket computers for police and emergency personnel, and e-government applications for everyone.

Which movie should they go and see tonight? Kai mails two video trailers to his friends’ cell phones and waits for his Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to field the results of the poll. In the meantime, he studies a digital map of the city to see where he might meet up with his wife. She’s out shopping right now and has set her mobile phone so that her husband and close friends can see where she is. On his way to the mall, Kai wants to cash in a voucher for a free espresso that will no longer be valid tomorrow. His PDA informs him that a participating coffee shop outlet is just around the corner.

This scenario is anything but a fantasy. Indeed, the development of such mobile data services is already in full swing. Take City on Air, for example, a package of services from Siemens Information and Communication Mobile (ICM), which was developed at Siemens laboratories in partnership with content providers and mobile network operators.

"City on Air sure beats having to struggle with a city map," says Dr. Thomas Wiemers, who is responsible for launching the new service package. Today, people in large German cities already have access to the first of a range of data services ICM will be providing, together with network operators, on the basis of a unified system platform for all types of terminals, including mobile phones, smart phones and personal organizers. In coming years, similar services will gradually become widespread throughout Europe.

Local services are already available to help motorists find parking or the cheapest gas station in the neighborhood. For people visiting a new city, another service will, for example display a list of all the Italian or Chinese restaurants within a 1 km radius Similarly, City on Air provides a quick and convenient way of locating the nearest ATM or late-night drugstore. Directions are shown either as text or—with the latest smart phones and organizers—displayed directly on a section of a city map. All mobile services from City on Air are highly localized and provide a pilot function similar to those shown on vehicle navigation systems. The use of intelligent filters and a limit on searches to the immediate geographical area has made many useful applications possible.

A variety of procedures can be employed to determine the position of the user’s mobile terminal. In addition to A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System), which utilizes satellite-based technology to pinpoint a user, service providers also use the standard GSM network or the access points of a wireless LAN (W-LAN) to provide customers with directions. "The choice of system depends on whether the directions are for indoors or outside, and how precise they have to be," explains Fritjof Kaiser, project manager at Siemens Corporate Technology (CT). At some point in the future, the services will automatically hook up to the best network for the job at hand, and users will notice less and less when a switch is made between different technologies.

One-on-One with Your Personal Organizer. Today’s innovative services can be used in a variety of ways. Depending on what’s most practical for a given situation, and what best meets their personal preferences, users may choose between voice-commands, keypad or touchscreen to operate their mobile terminals. "Field trials with SIMON (Siemens Mobile Guide with Natural Interaction), a multimodal shopping mall assistant, have demonstrated that this technology can be used to help people locate a specific store or product inside an unfamiliar building," says Kaiser.

"Even inexperienced users manage fine with voice commands," says Kaiser in reference to field trials. However, there are also occasions when the discretion offered by a keypad or writepad is of great benefit—such as when conducting bank transactions, for example. SIMON also demonstrates that it is possible to combine a pilot service with commercial promotions in a user-friendly way. When users are sent vouchers that they can store up and cash in via a mobile handset, they come to regard this as a genuine service rather than merely unsolicited advertising. Successful tests with the SIMON prototype have encouraged developers to push ahead with integration of voice and data technology featuring seamless switching between various input and output modes.

"For private users, it’s very important for the terminals to have attractive features and for services to have emotional content," says Wiemers. For example, tomorrow’s urban trendsetters will want to inform friends about the latest news and arrangements, or even hold an impromptu mobile vote to decide on the evening’s plans. Siemens’ ICM Group is looking to develop the market for PoC (Push to Talk over Cellular), which features walkie-talkie functions via mobile phone. ICM, which will begin marketing PoC handsets and services this year, is the first provider worldwide to offer a full PoC range based on a cross-manufacturer, open specification. Extensive testing is already under way in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Conference Calls on Your Mobile. A number of providers are planning the commercial launch of Push to Talk services from the middle of next year onward. Such services will enable users to communicate, at the touch of a button, with either one person or whole groups of people specified in a personalized contact list. The always on function of GPRS and the handset’s hands-free facility ensure that the recipient automatically receives the incoming voice communication. The technology also offers an ideal platform for multiplayer games. Similarly, mobile voting is useful not only for coordinating arrangements among friends, but also for making decisions in a professional setting.

Dr. Jörg Müller, who is responsible for agent-based and peer-to-peer technologies at Siemens Corporate Technology, expects these applications to become available in the near future. The EU’s LEAP (Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform) project, which concluded in 2002 and involved Siemens, not only enhanced communications between company headquarters and employees in the field (e.g. for the German automobile club ADAC and companies such as British Telecom), but also enabled users to coordinate and exchange job assignments in a virtual marketplace.

Berlin-based startup Space2Go offers a mobile organizer application based on a virtual hard drive in the Internet. To date, 2.4 million subscribers have registered with the company for a service that features the mobile administration of appointments and contacts, a reminder service, and online access to personal files and e-mails. The corresponding data are stored in the Internet and can be called up on the fly. Synchronization routines ensure that the information remains up to date on the server and the mobile devices, and that data remains protected should the user’s handset be lost or stolen. Christian Huthmacher is one of the founders of Space2go, which includes Siemens among its backers. He sees potential for useful applications in healthcare, including a service to remind outpatients to take their medication, and perhaps even the provision of access to patient files stored and administered online.

Everything on One Card. In the field of e-government (see insert and  Facts and Forecasts), information and communication technologies are now helping to break down the barriers between states and citizens. In Italy, for example, the government expects that more than 40 million people will use smartcards from Siemens over the next five years. The cards, which fulfill the highest security standards, can be used as identification cards or to file digital tax returns from home. It is also possible that the cards will be used as insurance IDs and even for voting.

In a move to accelerate reaction times and enhance the coordination of operations, the Spanish emergency services, the Turkish traffic police and the Italian police force have invested in mobile emergency call systems from Siemens. In Italy, for example, police officers from over 100 regional squads are now benefiting from the use of mobile communications technology and ultramodern call centers. Whenever command headquarters receives an emergency call, the computer system identifies the caller’s address on the basis of the telephone identifier and provides an onscreen display of a map showing the location. In addition, more than 8,000 vehicles of the Italian police force have been fitted with GPS equipment. It is therefore possible to display their position and movement on a map or an aerial image, as well as to show the current location of police officers patrolling on foot. Headquarters can therefore monitor any given situation at a glance.

Simple SMS (short messaging service) texts are all it takes to transmit location specific data between operational forces and command headquarters. Headquarters, in turn, can convey instructions and information to ground forces. In an emergency, the desk officer can even switch off the engine of a police vehicle and lock its doors via remote control. As Augusto Coriglioni, project manager at Siemens Business Services in Rome, explains, the new data communications system has also enhanced coordination between a variety of authorities. Similarly, substantially quicker reaction times on the part of the police tangibly improve security for the country’s citizens.

Anja Stemmer