The final post in this month's Tech Terms series is Chatbots. This post continues from the post on Natural Language Processing so check out that post if you want some further background. There is a lot of hype about robots taking jobs and chatbots are a good early representation of that possibility. Chatbots are computer programs designed … Continue reading Tech Terms: Chatbots
For most planning processes, it is a real challenge to get engagement and input from the public. It is also common to only hear from certain groups, leaving many communities unheard, especially marginalised groups. It's now possible to capture not only qualitative data from the public as they use and move through urban spaces, we … Continue reading Tech Terms: Sentiment Analysis
In the old days, you had to know how to speak the language of computers in order to use one. The dedicated few learnt precise commands in order to get a computer to undertake a task. Jump forward a few decades, and we have moved much further along the continuum of human-computer communication. Computers can … Continue reading Tech Terms: Natural Language Processing
These tech terms all refer to technologies which provide immersion into a combined real and virtual environment, but what does each specific term actually mean? And are these technologies just for gaming and entertainment or will they be part of our work toolkit in the future? XR - Extended/Cross Realities XR is the umbrella term … Continue reading Tech Terms: AR, VR, MR, XR
My article 'Localism in a hyper-connected, borderless world' appears in this month's (July 2019) Local Government Magazine. link to article This article draws on research I undertook as part of this year's Rodney Davies Research Symposium. My research paper is on 'digital disruption in the planning profession'. I presented my research findings at the NZPI conference this … Continue reading Local Government Magazine article
A digital twin is a digital representation of a real world physical resource. A digital twin is used to represent a complex real life system, such as a factory's manufacturing plant, an infrastructure network, a building and even a city. The digital twin is more than a model, it is a replica of the original … Continue reading Tech Terms: Digital Twin
BIM is not actually a new term, but it is a term which not all planners are familiar with, so it is worth covering as part of this series, especially as next we will look at the related term Digital Twin. BIM stands for Building Information Modelling. It is an information system to support the … Continue reading Tech Terms: BIM
A geofence is a virtual perimeter around a real world area. Geofence technology can be used to identify when someone or something enters or leaves the geofenced area. This then triggers some form of action. For example, Countdown supermarkets use geofence technology for their Click and Collect service. A geofence applies to the area within … Continue reading Tech Terms: Geofence
At the recent PIA Congress in Australia, a small group of delegates were surveyed to gauge how familiar urban planners are with technology related terms. I would like to replicate that survey in NZ at some point, but for now I was inspired to cover a few of these terms in the blog to raise awareness of … Continue reading Introducing PlanTech
Smartphones are an integral tool in our workflows these days, but how can we be more productive with them. Check out these eight hints for using your mobile device more productively. 1. Sync your phone with your other devices Ensure that you are working over the cloud so that regardless of the device you are … Continue reading Smartphone Productivity
