As of last month, travelers catching an American Airlines flight out of New York’s JFK airport have a new option for killing time before their boarding call: an 8-by-12-foot digital display, conveniently located between security and the departure gates, that lights up and announces “Welcome to the Smarter City!” every time someone walks within six feet of its huge, colorful screen.

Passersby who are suitably enticed to check out the gizmo will find an interactive touch-screen display showcasing IBM’s recent foray into large-scale, digital-technology-driven solutions for smarter, more livable cities. Specifically, users will be able to explore six neighborhoods of a hypothetical city, and learn about the various smart systems that IBM has imagined for them—things like coordinating police and fire department responses to emergencies by shared data systems, or centralizing health-care information to allow citizens easy access to their medical records. Bright and cheery touch icons lead the way to fancy animations, impressive graphs, and videos of mayors telling you how IBM solutions have transformed their cities.

Nifty stuff—but since when has IBM cared about smart cities? Read more…

By now, you’ve probably heard that, last weekend, JetBlue held a dry run of Terminal 5, its new 635,000-square-foot, $743 million facility at JFK. Around one thousand dyed-in-the-wool Jetters checked in to nonexistent flights, diligently filed through security stations, and stood in line to board phantom planes, all to help the building’s engineers, Arup, work out circulation and way-finding kinks before the opening on October 1. In return, there were free JetBlue caps. Naturally, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my Saturday. Read more…