Posts tagged with 'Google'
Cool Roofs: An Underused Tool for Reducing Heat
Cool Roofs: An Underused Tool for Reducing Heat
Cities and towns in the Mediterranean and the Middle East have long used white or light-colored roofs and walls to help keep people cool. Today, cities from Ahmedabad to Singapore are also turning to cool roofs to reduce urban heat ...
4 Levers for Addressing Africa’s Housing Crisis
4 Levers for Addressing Africa’s Housing Crisis
The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) convenes this month in Baku amid converging geopolitical and economic shocks: conflict-driven energy spikes, rising debt burdens and persistent inflation. Around the world, these shocks are squeezing public budgets and household incomes alike.  ...
From Energy Use to Air Quality, How Data Centers Affect US Communities
From Energy Use to Air Quality, How Data Centers Affect US Communities
AI tools like ChatGPT, navigation apps and streaming platforms feel effortless, drawing information seemingly from thin air. Yet the infrastructure behind them is anything but invisible. Across the country, a surge of new data centers is reshaping local energy grids, ...
How Cities Can Beat the (Extreme) Heat
How Cities Can Beat the (Extreme) Heat
In January 2024, the Central Business District of Cape Town, South Africa, endured a historically brutal day of heat: temperatures climbed to 44 degrees C – the highest ever measured in the city. But on that same day, people in other parts ...
A Roadmap to Achieving 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy
A Roadmap to Achieving 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy
Over the past 10 years, large energy buyers including corporations and cities have taken major strides to reduce energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by setting 100% renewable energy targets and then purchasing renewable electricity to demonstrate progress on an annual basis.  ...
Besides Buying Renewables, How Can Companies and Cities Create a Greener Grid?
Besides Buying Renewables, How Can Companies and Cities Create a Greener Grid?
Corporations have driven much of the recent U.S. investment in renewable energy, collectively procuring more than 16 gigawatts of new capacity since 2014, enough to power roughly 5 million homes for a year. Commercial and industrial energy users represent more than 60% of U.S. ...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/talitaoliveira/3398977656/
Friday Fun: Beyond the Map—Google Explores Rio’s Slums
What do you think of when you hear the word “slum”? For many, the word brings to mind poverty, violence and squalor; slums, or informal settlements, are overwhelmingly associated with the negative. This is particularly true in Rio de Janeiro, ...
What’s Next for Google’s “Project Sunroof?” Reducing the Need for Power in the First Place
What’s Next for Google’s “Project Sunroof?” Reducing the Need for Power in the First Place
Google recently released Project Sunroof—an interactive online tool that allows building owners to estimate how much money they can save by installing solar panels on their roofs. In short, the tool is a valuable resource for anyone considering solar power ...
Why Developing Cities Should Standardize and Open Their Transit Data
Why Developing Cities Should Standardize and Open Their Transit Data
Wondering if it would be faster to bike, take the bus or metro to work? A simple search on Google Maps or your preferred transit app can give you this information almost instantly, thanks to transit agencies that provide their ...
Google created Sidewalk Labs to solve urban challenges with technology. Photo by Roman Kruglov/Flickr
Google creates company to improve cities
If Google was to solve urban problems as it solve digital ones, would the world be safer? Get ready because this is precisely the ambition of the Internet giant, which just announced a new company that will work at the ...
Technology is allowing city residents to interact with their surroundings in new ways, which can have both the benefit of advancing sustainable development and the drawback of reinforcing social divisions. Photo by Daniel Chavez/Flickr.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: New mapping algorithm poses problems and promise for cities
Yahoo Labs has recently created a mapping algorithm that helps pedestrians find not the shortest route to their destination, but the most attractive one. This is great for visitors who want to spend every second of their time sightseeing in ...
Smart car tipped in San Francisco, California. Photo by Jeff Chiu.
Friday Fun: Smart cars reach tipping point
No, not that kind of tipping point. While smart car usage is on the rise, it hasn’t quite crossed the Malcolm Gladwell threshold. We’re talking about a different trend: smart car tipping. It seems an unidentified group of six to ...
TheCityFix Picks, August 17: Brazil Infrastructure Investments, "Elegant Density," Texting Behind the Wheel
TheCityFix Picks, August 17: Brazil Infrastructure Investments, "Elegant Density," Texting Behind the Wheel
Welcome back to TheCityFix Picks, our series highlighting the newsy and noteworthy of the past week. Each Friday, we’ll run down the headlines falling under TheCityFix’s five themes: integrated transport, urban development and accessibility, air quality and climate change, health and ...
Google Wallet Partners with NJ Transit for Easy Ticketing
Google Wallet Partners with NJ Transit for Easy Ticketing
Google Wallet, an app that transforms your phone into your wallet, is partnering with New Jersey Transit to bring the “tap-and-pay” option to customers. “NJ Transit is the first public transportation agency to partner with Google Wallet,” NJ.com explains, “allowing ...
Friday Fun: Overlapping Digital and Physical City Centers
Friday Fun: Overlapping Digital and Physical City Centers
German artist Aram Bartholl has installed physical versions of Google Map’s red place markers in the middle of cities around the world. The urban art installation, “Map,” is meant to question the boundaries between the physical environment, the digital world and censorship. ...
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