General Electric launches a picturesque and creative Web series. The episodes explain how big data make cities safer and increase the efficiency of their services thanks to smart grids, which link together technologies and information
It’s worth watching it, after which one must acknowledge that General Electric hit home. To whoever does not believe in Big Data or doesn’t understand them because they “can’t see them”, the American giant replies with Datalandia, a Web series filmed at a miniature wonderland, where sexy vampires are fought by its inhabitants thanks to a new kind of hero: machines that share Big Data.
Big Data and safety is the combination proposed by GE, which in each episode of the series narrates an amusing story, with picturesque characters who speak informally. The most recent episode was “Invasion of the CattleSnatchers”.
UFO hunter Garry Woiakoski observes suspicious power drops on the electricity grid. Are the aliens threatening Datalandia? The airplanes that fly over it pick up the first signs on their monitors and alert the airport’s control tower. Staff people are drinking a mocaccino and don’t pay much attention to the radar detectors, but all the same the flight management system plans new routes for all airplanes.
“Humans are stupid” is the aliens’ message, spread around by the satellites and decrypted by the data centre of the small imaginary town. In order to respond to the UFO’s insolent threat, the local public utility uses its smart grid system to convey electricity targeting the windows of a building, so as to light them up on and off according to the aliens’ code. The invaders take the blow and withdraw, snatching only a few cows as a reminder of their incursion
