A data-centered fog platform for smart living

Some ancient people are believed to have lived in a variety of caves. The cave dwellers lived on fishing, hunting and primitive agriculture. People gathered with the developing of productivity to dwell in villages, towns and cities, as shown in Figure 12.1. City dwellers today heavily rely on public services such as water, electricity, gas, telephony and the Internet. However, no matter where people live, the human pursuit of a dreamlike living environment never stops in terms of affordability, security, comfort and automation. In 2008, the abstraction of smart cities was introduced by IBM, as a part of its Smarter Planet initiative. By the start of 2009, the idea had captivated the imagination of lots of nations in Europe, America and Asia. Interestingly, all of a sudden, numerous cities announced their plans to turn into smart cities (to name a few, Melbourne, Beijing, Vienna and Amsterdam). Globally, new cities such as Masdar outside of Abu Dhabi, Paredes in Portugal and Songdo in South Korea label themselves as smart and older cities (such as Silicon Alley in New York City, Silicon Roundabout in London and Akihabara in Tokyo) regenerate themselves as smart