Designed and accidental humor in the Smart Digital Wild

The concept of Smart Cities has been introduced some decades ago. How can information and communication technology help to manage a city and make it smart? Management can concern issues such as the distribution of energy and water, traffic control, public transport, surveillance, safety, and data networks. We can say that Smart Cities are ruled by data that is gathered using all kinds of sensors, while decisions based on this data are made by ‘intelligent’ actuators, including humans and computing devices [1]. However, sensors and actuators will appear everywhere in our urban environments. In public spaces, in street furniture, in buildings and in our homes. With our smartphones and other wearables we transform ourselves into smart nodes and controllable nodes in the Internet of Things. In ‘Project Jacquard’ Google teams up with Levi’s to make smart jean jackets that allow touch and gesture interactivity. It is illustrative to see the transformation from the well-known Ada Lovelace’s (1843) description of programming Babbage’s Analytical Engine (“The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”) to Mark Weiser’s (1991) quote about ambient intelligence “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” and the quote from the Jacquard project (2015) “Project Jacquard makes it possible to weave touch and gesture interactivity into any textile using standard, industrial looms.”