40
3 Social Forces
spend their money on fighting the disease in those countries that are suffering from
the disease first.
20
3.4 Creating a Planetary Nervous System as a Citizen Web
Very soon, we will not only have maps, which aggregate data from the past and
represent them as a function of space, time or network interdependencies. We will
also have systems, which deliver real-time answers. We will be able to ask questions,
which trigger tailored measurements to answer them. “How is the traffic on Oxford
Street in London?” “How is the weather in Moscow?” “How could investment decisions and consumer choices be affected?” “How happy are people in Sydney today,
and how much money will they spend in shops?” “What worries people in Paris at
the moment?” “How many people are up between 3 am and 4 am on Sunday nights
around Manhattan’s Central Square, and is it worth selling pizza at that time?” “How
noisy is it in the part of town I am considering to move to?” “What’s the rate of flu
infections in the region where I wish to spend my holidays?” “Where are the road
holes in my city located?” “When did we have the last significant earthquake within
a range of 500 km?” Answers to questions like these would help us to be more aware
of the world around us, to make better decisions, and act more effectively. But how
will we get all this real-time information?
The sensor networks, on which the “Internet of Things” is based, will enable us
to perform real-time measurements of almost everything. They can be used to build
a “Planetary Nervous System” (PNS), an intelligent information platform proposed
by the FuturICT project (http://www.futurict.eu).
21 The In fact, my team has started
to develop such an information platform, called Nervousnet.
22 Nervousnet would
harness the power of the Internet of Things for everyone’s benefit and would be built
and managed in a participatory way, as a “Citizen Web”.
23 Similar to OpenStreetMap,
we wanted to develop this system together with an emerging network of volunteers,
who are committed to developing the project further.
This collaborative approach would give citizens control over their personal data,
in accordance with their right of informational self-determination, and create new
opportunities for everyone. Nervousnet would not only offer the possibility to
contribute to the measurement of our world, in order to jointly create something
like a real-time data Wikipedia. Nervousnet would also establish a social mining
paradigm, where users are given freedom and incentives to collect, share and use
20 Colizza et al. [7].
21 Helbing and Carbone [8].
22 See http://nervousnet.ethz.ch/, https://web.archive.org/web/2020*/nervousnet.info and https://
youtu.be/pN2hAcr6ujk as well as https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7097988.
23 D. Helbing, Creating (“Making”) a Planetary Nervous System as Citizen Web, see http://futurict.
blogspot.ch/2014/09/creating-making-planetary-nervous.html; see also the videos at https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=BKcWPdSUJVA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvnkoT4CLNk.
3 Social Forces
spend their money on fighting the disease in those countries that are suffering from
the disease first.
20
3.4 Creating a Planetary Nervous System as a Citizen Web
Very soon, we will not only have maps, which aggregate data from the past and
represent them as a function of space, time or network interdependencies. We will
also have systems, which deliver real-time answers. We will be able to ask questions,
which trigger tailored measurements to answer them. “How is the traffic on Oxford
Street in London?” “How is the weather in Moscow?” “How could investment decisions and consumer choices be affected?” “How happy are people in Sydney today,
and how much money will they spend in shops?” “What worries people in Paris at
the moment?” “How many people are up between 3 am and 4 am on Sunday nights
around Manhattan’s Central Square, and is it worth selling pizza at that time?” “How
noisy is it in the part of town I am considering to move to?” “What’s the rate of flu
infections in the region where I wish to spend my holidays?” “Where are the road
holes in my city located?” “When did we have the last significant earthquake within
a range of 500 km?” Answers to questions like these would help us to be more aware
of the world around us, to make better decisions, and act more effectively. But how
will we get all this real-time information?
The sensor networks, on which the “Internet of Things” is based, will enable us
to perform real-time measurements of almost everything. They can be used to build
a “Planetary Nervous System” (PNS), an intelligent information platform proposed
by the FuturICT project (http://www.futurict.eu).
21 The In fact, my team has started
to develop such an information platform, called Nervousnet.
22 Nervousnet would
harness the power of the Internet of Things for everyone’s benefit and would be built
and managed in a participatory way, as a “Citizen Web”.
23 Similar to OpenStreetMap,
we wanted to develop this system together with an emerging network of volunteers,
who are committed to developing the project further.
This collaborative approach would give citizens control over their personal data,
in accordance with their right of informational self-determination, and create new
opportunities for everyone. Nervousnet would not only offer the possibility to
contribute to the measurement of our world, in order to jointly create something
like a real-time data Wikipedia. Nervousnet would also establish a social mining
paradigm, where users are given freedom and incentives to collect, share and use
20 Colizza et al. [7].
21 Helbing and Carbone [8].
22 See http://nervousnet.ethz.ch/, https://web.archive.org/web/2020*/nervousnet.info and https://
youtu.be/pN2hAcr6ujk as well as https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7097988.
23 D. Helbing, Creating (“Making”) a Planetary Nervous System as Citizen Web, see http://futurict.
blogspot.ch/2014/09/creating-making-planetary-nervous.html; see also the videos at https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=BKcWPdSUJVA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvnkoT4CLNk.