Google’s newborn, independent company Sidewalk Labs which was quiet for a while without any objectives and on which no one had information and expectations of what it is going to do during its launch earlier this month, breaks up the silence and comes with the motive to improve the urban standard of living by its innovation and technology incubation, initiates its very first project called LyncNYC, which was announced last fall. This project is meant for the city of New York where the old public pay telephone booths are going to be transformed into a high range, performance oriented and widespread Wi-Fi hubs.
These hotspots not only focus on providing free blazing fast internet speeds with superficial latencies, but also have some worth mentioning specialties indulged in them. They include USB charging for cellular phones and other rechargeable electronic gadgets, free domestic phone calls, self-helping interface screens using which people can find their transit information and nearby mode of transport to travel with ease, by finding either a bus or a subway. Hence, these hubs are going to be a one-stop solution for multiple complications that people encounter during their transit and in many other cases, even in emergencies.
For all this to happen in a rapid and qualitative manner and make it practically possible, Sidewalk Labs procured two major companies called Control Group and Titan who are the core members of the project LynkNYC and merged them into a new company called Intersection. The company’s plan is to also expand this project to other major cities, but it has not been announced when it is going to take place. It is said that the reason behind launching Sidewalk Labs by Google is the need to work in collaboration with such type of companies which thrive to enhance and implement the technology by looking up the urban challenges in a broader way and to find multi-beneficiary solutions for them. These so-called Wi-Fi pylons will be ad-supported and distributed all along the city. Thus, Sidewalk Labs values that the project can be scaled and will be moved on relatively quickly and in an affordable manner.