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Super-smart grid spies out leaks
Technology
Super-smart grid spies out leaks Monitoring the flow through a city’s pipes by the millisecond could cut usage and prove a lifesaver once every few minutes. When a pipe springs a leak, the pressure change sweeps through the whole mains network. Visenti’s sensors pick up changes at multiple points across the network, sending the data to a central server that triangulates the signal back to the leak’s source. The system can often tell more about what’s going on than on-
Hal Hodson
SOURCE: IB-NET.ORG/GUARDIAN/WWW.PUB.GOV.SG
Au st ra lia Si ng ap or e
Ch in a US
Br az il UK
IN MAY, a water main under one of the world’s most expensive buildings sprung a big leak. No one knew water was eating into the foundations of Marina Bay Sands, Singapore’s casino, retail and entertainment megacomplex. But a network of sensors, the first of its kind, spotted the sudden drop in water “The sensors spotted the pressure, traced its location and drop in water pressure scrambled a team of engineers and scrambled engineers before damage could spread. before the damage spread” Designed by a company called Visenti, a spin-out of the Massachusetts Institute of site engineers. Ami Preis, a Technology, the Waterwise co‑founder of Visenti, says the network is distributed across the system measured the Marina Bay Singaporean water grid. About Sands leak as a big one. “But when 130 sensors take readings every engineers got to the site they said millisecond, sampling the the leak is not that big. Then they pressure far faster than existing started digging there, and they systems, which typically sample saw the leak was as bad as we told them.” “Singapore is quite ahead of Lost in transit the game in managing water Leaky pipes plague the water supply distribution,” says Jean-Pierre in many countries. Often problems are Bardet, director of the Urban Water left unfixed as repairs simply aren’t Institute at the University of Texas worth the cost at Arlington. “They are on an island without much water, so they have to be creative about managing it.” Visenti’s sensor technology is 5% now being rolled out to other big 7% (2014) cities in Asia and Australia. Hong (2012) Kong and Melbourne have just 13% (2011) installed their own networks, and Visenti is gathering data in 21% Sydney as part of an upcoming 24% (2012) (2014) deployment there. Treated water lost As urban populations swell in before it reaches the face of water supplies that are the customer (%) 39% roughly static in quantity and (2011) geographical distribution, water 20 | NewScientist | 8 November 2014
US - 13%
required to pump it. grids need technology like this Visenti also has sensors that to keep up with demand.Australia 7% There is plenty of room for Singapore – 4%go beyond keeping tabs on leaks: they measure pH, temperature, improvement. In the US, many Brazil – 39% electrical conductivity and other pipes date back to the mid-19th century. Water mains in China – 21% properties that can be used to sniff out water contamination. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UK – 24% Nearly all urban water systems leaked a third of what they carried Korea - 16% do this kind of monitoring 40as in 2009. In Cleveland, Ohio, the water enters the network, but figure was 29 per cent. 35 almost none of them do so as it Ireland is blessed with 30 reaches the tap. Bardet says abundant fresh water resources, 25 can monitoring across a network which may explain why it can afford to lose about 350 millilitres help assure customers that20their tap water is safe and good to for every litre entering the grid. 15 Many other countries face similar drink, something that’s especially 10 important as desalinated and losses due to poor infrastructure 5 directly recycled waste water (see graph). become an essential part of0 By catching leaks before supply in growing cities. they get out of hand, technology Much of the world can’t readily like Visenti’s can conserve Brazil – 39% have a water system with the water and save on the energy UK – 24%
China – 21% US - 13%
“There’s no economic incentive to care how much you use.” Not all solutions need to be high-tech, though. Situated in the Nevada desert, the city of Las Vegas has always been on a tight water budget. Its response has been to build a system that recycles nearly all water used indoors. Waste water is captured, treated, then pumped into a specially created marsh – called the Las Vegas Wash – which serves as a giant natural filter, before emptying into Lake Mead. The city then draws “new” water from the lake, treats it, pumps it to homes and businesses, and the cycle continues.
Epidemic of failures “Since 2002, we have reduced our water consumption by 123 billion litres,” says Bronson Mack of the Las Vegas Valley Water District. “Yet this community has grown by 480,000 people.” Bardet recently started applying epidemiological principles to the systems of pipes in the developed world’s major cities. He discovered that failures tend to propagate like disease outbreaks. As an example, he cites a –Water, water, everywhere… oops– cascade of burst water mains in Los Angeles in 2009. “The city had same efficiencies as Singapore’s, been very cautious not to break Bardet says. “Infrastructure is not anything for a while, so when they ready for it,” he says. “It’s ageing. started to do something they had It’s really hard to do new things an explosion,” he says. with old pipes.” Large amounts of “Once there was a sudden money were spent to build water disturbance in the system, the mains in developed countries, rest of it started to break left and often more than a hundred years right.” One break allowed millions of litres to flood the campus of the “Water infrastructure is University of California, Los not ready for modern Angeles, submerging cars and technology. It’s hard to do creating spontaneous waterfalls new things with old pipes” in front of buildings. “They couldn’t find the valve to ago, but the same level of shut down the pipe,” Bardet says. investment is not going into “Would you call the system smart maintaining that infrastructure. when the warning signal takes “One of the big challenges with hours to propagate through? They water in the US is that it’s too could have saved a lot of water and cheap,” says Eric Williams, a water a lot of economic damage if you engineer at the Rochester Institute could reroute water within the of Technology in New York. system quickly.” n
ONE PER CENT
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“We’re making a long-term bet on the future of computing” Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg talks about the $2 billion purchase of virtual reality headset Oculus Rift at Facebook’s latest earnings announcement last week. Zuckerberg said he wants to sell 50 to 100 million headsets within 10 years
900 classic arcade games on your PC Press start. Internet archivist and historian Jason Scott has launched a website where people can play over 900 classic arcade games, from Frogger to Marble Madness. The Internet Arcade is able to run games within your web browser using an embedded online emulator of classic arcade systems. Instead of a gigantic arcade machine, players control the games using their computer keyboard.
8 November 2014 | NewScientist | 21
Thomas Jackson/Getty
Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
Super-smart grid spies out leaks Monitoring the flow through a city’s pipes by the millisecond could cut usage and prove a lifesaver once every few minutes. When a pipe springs a leak, the pressure change sweeps through the whole mains network. Visenti’s sensors pick up changes at multiple points across the network, sending the data to a central server that triangulates the signal back to the leak’s source. The system can often tell more about what’s going on than on-
Hal Hodson
SOURCE: IB-NET.ORG/GUARDIAN/WWW.PUB.GOV.SG
Au st ra lia Si ng ap or e
Ch in a US
Br az il UK
IN MAY, a water main under one of the world’s most expensive buildings sprung a big leak. No one knew water was eating into the foundations of Marina Bay Sands, Singapore’s casino, retail and entertainment megacomplex. But a network of sensors, the first of its kind, spotted the sudden drop in water “The sensors spotted the pressure, traced its location and drop in water pressure scrambled a team of engineers and scrambled engineers before damage could spread. before the damage spread” Designed by a company called Visenti, a spin-out of the Massachusetts Institute of site engineers. Ami Preis, a Technology, the Waterwise co‑founder of Visenti, says the network is distributed across the system measured the Marina Bay Singaporean water grid. About Sands leak as a big one. “But when 130 sensors take readings every engineers got to the site they said millisecond, sampling the the leak is not that big. Then they pressure far faster than existing started digging there, and they systems, which typically sample saw the leak was as bad as we told them.” “Singapore is quite ahead of Lost in transit the game in managing water Leaky pipes plague the water supply distribution,” says Jean-Pierre in many countries. Often problems are Bardet, director of the Urban Water left unfixed as repairs simply aren’t Institute at the University of Texas worth the cost at Arlington. “They are on an island without much water, so they have to be creative about managing it.” Visenti’s sensor technology is 5% now being rolled out to other big 7% (2014) cities in Asia and Australia. Hong (2012) Kong and Melbourne have just 13% (2011) installed their own networks, and Visenti is gathering data in 21% Sydney as part of an upcoming 24% (2012) (2014) deployment there. Treated water lost As urban populations swell in before it reaches the face of water supplies that are the customer (%) 39% roughly static in quantity and (2011) geographical distribution, water 20 | NewScientist | 8 November 2014
US - 13%
required to pump it. grids need technology like this Visenti also has sensors that to keep up with demand.Australia 7% There is plenty of room for Singapore – 4%go beyond keeping tabs on leaks: they measure pH, temperature, improvement. In the US, many Brazil – 39% electrical conductivity and other pipes date back to the mid-19th century. Water mains in China – 21% properties that can be used to sniff out water contamination. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UK – 24% Nearly all urban water systems leaked a third of what they carried Korea - 16% do this kind of monitoring 40as in 2009. In Cleveland, Ohio, the water enters the network, but figure was 29 per cent. 35 almost none of them do so as it Ireland is blessed with 30 reaches the tap. Bardet says abundant fresh water resources, 25 can monitoring across a network which may explain why it can afford to lose about 350 millilitres help assure customers that20their tap water is safe and good to for every litre entering the grid. 15 Many other countries face similar drink, something that’s especially 10 important as desalinated and losses due to poor infrastructure 5 directly recycled waste water (see graph). become an essential part of0 By catching leaks before supply in growing cities. they get out of hand, technology Much of the world can’t readily like Visenti’s can conserve Brazil – 39% have a water system with the water and save on the energy UK – 24%
China – 21% US - 13%
“There’s no economic incentive to care how much you use.” Not all solutions need to be high-tech, though. Situated in the Nevada desert, the city of Las Vegas has always been on a tight water budget. Its response has been to build a system that recycles nearly all water used indoors. Waste water is captured, treated, then pumped into a specially created marsh – called the Las Vegas Wash – which serves as a giant natural filter, before emptying into Lake Mead. The city then draws “new” water from the lake, treats it, pumps it to homes and businesses, and the cycle continues.
Epidemic of failures “Since 2002, we have reduced our water consumption by 123 billion litres,” says Bronson Mack of the Las Vegas Valley Water District. “Yet this community has grown by 480,000 people.” Bardet recently started applying epidemiological principles to the systems of pipes in the developed world’s major cities. He discovered that failures tend to propagate like disease outbreaks. As an example, he cites a –Water, water, everywhere… oops– cascade of burst water mains in Los Angeles in 2009. “The city had same efficiencies as Singapore’s, been very cautious not to break Bardet says. “Infrastructure is not anything for a while, so when they ready for it,” he says. “It’s ageing. started to do something they had It’s really hard to do new things an explosion,” he says. with old pipes.” Large amounts of “Once there was a sudden money were spent to build water disturbance in the system, the mains in developed countries, rest of it started to break left and often more than a hundred years right.” One break allowed millions of litres to flood the campus of the “Water infrastructure is University of California, Los not ready for modern Angeles, submerging cars and technology. It’s hard to do creating spontaneous waterfalls new things with old pipes” in front of buildings. “They couldn’t find the valve to ago, but the same level of shut down the pipe,” Bardet says. investment is not going into “Would you call the system smart maintaining that infrastructure. when the warning signal takes “One of the big challenges with hours to propagate through? They water in the US is that it’s too could have saved a lot of water and cheap,” says Eric Williams, a water a lot of economic damage if you engineer at the Rochester Institute could reroute water within the of Technology in New York. system quickly.” n
ONE PER CENT
Erase your face from Facebook snaps Tired of de-tagging yourself from embarrassing Facebook photos? Software called InvisibleMe might be able to help. It will automatically erase someone from a photo that has been shared online if that person has previously said they don’t want to be included. Developed by Lan Zhang and colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Illinois Institute of Technology, InvisibleMe uses face recognition to match a portrait photograph of the individual with any snaps it detects, before blurring their face out. During tests, the software was able to detect and blur faces from photographs within 4 seconds (arxiv.org/abs/1410.6582).
Become immortal with Bitcoin You might not be around forever, but if you think Bitcoin will, you are in luck. A start-up called Genecoin intends to allow people to deposit unique portions of their genetic code within Bitcoin’s blockchain – a ledger for virtual currency transactions. The blockchain can store small amounts of data, in this case DNA, with every transaction made in Bitcoin. Genecoin claims the approach is the ideal way to back up your genetic material for the long-term future.
“We’re making a long-term bet on the future of computing” Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg talks about the $2 billion purchase of virtual reality headset Oculus Rift at Facebook’s latest earnings announcement last week. Zuckerberg said he wants to sell 50 to 100 million headsets within 10 years
900 classic arcade games on your PC Press start. Internet archivist and historian Jason Scott has launched a website where people can play over 900 classic arcade games, from Frogger to Marble Madness. The Internet Arcade is able to run games within your web browser using an embedded online emulator of classic arcade systems. Instead of a gigantic arcade machine, players control the games using their computer keyboard.
8 November 2014 | NewScientist | 21
Thomas Jackson/Getty
Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology