IBM Reveals Five Innovations that Will Change Cities in the Next Five Years

IBM unveiled a list of innovations that have the potential to change how people live, work and play in cities around the globe over the next five to ten years:

· Cities will have healthier immune systems

· City buildings will sense and respond like living organisms

· Cars and city buses will run on empty

· Smarter systems will quench cities’ thirst for water and save energy

· Cities will respond to a crisis -- even before receiving an emergency phone call

An estimated 60 million people are moving to cities and urban areas each year - more than one million every week. The fourth-annual “IBM Next 5 in 5” focuses on cities because the world is experiencing unprecedented urbanization. Last year, our planet reached an important milestone - for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population resided in cities.

IBM’s Next 5 in 5 is based on market and societal trends expected to transform cities, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s labs around the world that have the potential to turn these predictions into reality.

Cities must simultaneously address increasing populations and deteriorating infrastructure. IBM is already working with cities around the world to make them smarter so they can sustain growth.

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7ticc7jnE

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news180296667.html

Visit: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/smartplanet/cities/index.shtml