Galvanizing girls for development? Critiquing the shift from ‘smart’ to ‘smarter economics’

Smarter Buildings for the Smart Grid ?

An increasing number of buildings are equipped with embedded sensing systems in order to capture what is happening within. These smart buildings process collected sensor data to increase user comfort and safety, cater for ambient assisted living, or help the residents save energy. However, saving energy is not always beneficial to the power grid, especially when renewable sources are present. M...

Smart Biomaterials, Smarter Medicine?

“End of fillings in sight”was The Telegraph's headline in a recent article reporting the promotion of natural tooth repair from a team at King's College London (UK). The study found thatwhen a biodegradable collagen sponge soaked in the drug tideglusib (a glycogen synthase kinase-3 inhibitor) was implanted into a tooth cavity, it mobilized resident stem cells in the dental pulp to stimulate the...

SymbioCity: Smart cities for smarter networks

The “Smart City” (SC) concept revolves around the idea of embodying cutting-edge ICT solutions in the very fabric of future cities, in order to offer new and better services to citizens while lowering the city management costs, both in monetary, social, and environmental terms. In this framework, communication technologies are perceived as subservient to the SC services, providing the means to ...

Smart, smarter, smartest... the consumer meets the smart electrical grid

Making the Smart Energy Grid Even Smarter

Our nation’s infrastructure for generating, transmitting, and distributing electricity — “The Grid” — is a relic based in many respects on century-old technology. It consists of expensive, centralized generation via large plants, and a massive, centrally-controlled transmission and distribution system. It strives to deliver high-quality power to all subscribers simultaneously — no matter what t...