Denver's ‘smart city’ neighborhood will have driverless buses, blanket WiFi

This spring, developers will break ground on Peña Station Next, a futuristic neighborhood built from scratch “midway between Tokyo and Frankfurt”—a.k.a. on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado. The site was chosen by Japanese technology behemoth Panasonic, the city’s partner in the project, as a testbed for self-driving vehicles, solar power, and smart home technologies. Already, the site is outfitted with 53 intelligent LED streetlights and a parking lot covered with solar panels. An EZ10 autonomous shuttle is slated to arrive later this month—the same self-driving buses that hit Helsinki streets in August.

At this year’s CES, Panasonic showed off some of the other technology that’ll be tested at Peña Station, including transparent glass panels that double as display screens, induction stoves concealed within stone countertops, and connected bus stops displaying the locations and arrival times of nearby buses. The neighborhood will also be monitored by a sensor system tracking air pollution, cloud cover, humidity, noise, and temperature.

Construction of the development’s residential buildings is scheduled to begin in March. Once completed, the 400-acre site will be a mixed-use neighborhood with an anticipated economic impact of $82 billion a year. Check out the full story here.

Via: Denver Post