San Diego resident here.
One of the more valuable things I would like to see from this network of sensors is heat maps of traffic issues.
For example, California rolling stops are the stuff of legend, and yet failure to stop is a significant cause of accidents and injuries. A heat map of the day of week, time of day, when these incidents are most likely could provide for selective and useful enforcement.
Alternatively, that same data could be used to indicate that stop signs should be replaced with a yield sign in a particular direction or convert the entire intersection to a roundabout to ease traffic flow.
My hope is that the data streams will be used in aggregate and not for individual enforcement. Trends are your friend.
The idea of collecting lots of audiovisual data all over a city without a clear plan of what to do with it seems mad, outright dystopian to me.
The article describe how the city suddenly has much more data than what they needed or wanted and that they have to start training their people in data science now. There's no mention of privacy at all. I'd see having too much data ("But it’s like we asked for a cold drink of water and got shot in the face with a firehose") more of a liability and danger for the people of the city than a great opportunity.
Public projects should approach problems from the reverse. Figure out what problem you need to solve, then define what the minimal amount of data is that you need to capture. Make a plan how to guarantee privacy and anonymity, and if you have all that, go and put out some sensors. Not the other way round.
Secure beneath the watchful eyes... only these record audio as well. Hope you didn't plan on having a conversation in private.
I remember when San Diego streetlights had radios strapped to them for the Ricochet wireless internet service. 56-128 Kbps wireless internet was a damn cool thing to see back in the late 90s/early 00s.
Did anyone see any mention of the networking tech. their using in each light, e.g. 4G or something else?
The only mention of privacy on that page was the site's privacy policy--the issue of privacy is more important than that.
there is a military-connected startup that is making physical devices that can be placed on vehicles to track them, in that sensor network
"The city is also getting ready to use the parking data to help people find a parking space. "
I can see the "real" conversations between the sales person and city officials. "We can tell you when and where exactly the parking violations is happening and guide enforcers directly to that car. This is not an expense, it is a revenue generating machine."
Every $1000 investment generate $xxxx ARR ticket revenue - easy math.