Google Equipping Carnegie Mellon With Smart Tech To Become A Living Lab

The experiment may eventually introduce Internet of Things (IoT) Technologies to all of Pittsburg.

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg is all set to get a shot in its boost of its renowned robotics research institutions, with Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) funding a project to expand the institutions cachet, as part of CMU turning its campus into a “living laboratory” for smart technologies.

The move will essentially make CMU a petri dish as part of Google Internet of Things (IoT) technology scheme. The campus will be fitted with accelerometers and Internet connected sensors that will enable CMU’s building assets, as well as other traditionally “dumb” devices to link with the help of the Internet.

According to Pittsburg Post-Gazette, the aim is to permit any physical object, from a cafeteria or a bus stop, to connect with web-enabled devices. The wider plan is to move the project beyond the boundaries of the CMU campus.

Anind K. Dey, project lead investigator, said that the goal is to convert a lot of space in the CMU campus into smart spaces for the purpose of interaction between students, visitors, and staff. After that, the plan will be expanded into the city of Pittsburg as a whole.

The project at CMU is seen as fragment of Google building up a platform for the facilitation of its IoT applications, dubbed the GIoTTO, which is a way of developing app development software, privacy measures, as well as the development of cheap sensors. Since it is developed at the campus of CMU, the university will take the lead, though it will receive some assistance from researchers from Stanford, Cornell, and University of Illinois.

However, the real reason for CMU taking the charge, according to Maggie Johnson, Google’s Director of University Relations, is because of the university’s vision of having a living laboratory and making good judicious use of its resources for validating system design. The search engine giant is expected to provide a grant of over $500,000 to the university to kick the initiative off the ground.

When the decision is made to expand the perimeters of smart spaces in to the city as a whole, people assumed that it could have wide implications on the city. The public may have much information at their disposal, but this would help in adding that information, so that everybody has an opinion regarding how the city is actually run. Future endeavors are yet to be determined that where it will lead the project overall.

Google’s stock price ended the day at $520.68, a gain of 0.75% the previous day.