‘Smart’ Streetlights Hit the Streets

How do you get 100 lighting industry executives to ooh and aah when they look at a streetlight?

Apparently, by turning it on and off using a cellphone.

That’s what a Pacific Gas and Electric employee did in the streets of San Francisco last Tuesday night, much to the delight of the crowd who had trekked over from a Department of Energy conference on LED lighting a few blocks away. The New York Times reports.

This was more than a parlor trick; in actuality, it was a demonstration of what could eventually become a system of “smart” streetlights, lamps that could be controlled from a central point, turned on and off, dimmed and even flashed continually in an emergency, much like a car’s four-way flashers. All of that was shown the other night.

Read full article.

emily | 9:35 AM | Technology |
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2009/02/022665.htm

Tweet