If you follow KC Tech news no doubt you've already seen the announcement. Its exciting to see Kansas City becoming a "test bed" of technology. First Google Fiber, and now Cisco's Smart+ initiative.
Ironically I was reading an article just yesterday on "Fog Computing." For obvious reasons Cisco will be a key player as technology moves closer to the user. Their team describes Fog Computing as "a paradigm that extends Cloud computing and services to the edge of the network. Similar to Cloud, Fog provides data, compute, storage, and application services to end-users. The distinguishing Fog characteristics are its proximity to end-users, its dense geographical distribution, and its support for mobility."
Everyone catch that? Essentially they're saying the systems that allow you to process information on your phone and tablet are going to be widely available and lightning fast. Are you listening TimeWarner & Comcast? The Smart+ initiative may put sensors in the track for our new light rail (here's where I sarcastically hold my breath), and I'm sure the smart folks in our tech community can find the real benefit when those sensors aren't chewing up bandwidth.
I'm certainly no "nuts and bolts" technician, but I am very excited to see how this new technology can impact our community.
