*Larry Page said: “By improving urban technology, it’s possible to significantly improve the lives of billions of people around the world. With Sidewalk, we want to supercharge existing efforts in areas such as housing, energy, transportation and government to solve real problems that city-dwellers face every day. Every time I talk with Dan I feel an amazing sense of opportunity because of his passion for all the ways technology can help transform cities to be more livable, flexible and vibrant. And when you combine that with his experience as an investor, in NYC government, and as CEO of the large information company Bloomberg LP, I can’t imagine a better person to lead these efforts.”

Let's get serious. This initiative is not about toilets, smart flushing and homeless.

I'm fine with it as long as I don't have to have anything always connected to internet, sync data in the cloud and be forced to agree/manage/monitor gazillions of privacy changes, terms and conditions where companies decide to update and change their data protection acts, the ways the share, store and manipulate my data.

Maybe we should firmly keep big technology companies, already in tune with the NSA friends, get closer to our families and private lives. The last thing I'd want is Google, Bloomberg, IBM, Facebook and Cisco circulating all my activities (toilet flushes including) for the sake of my children, future nephews and my neighbours to NSA, have my own cars or my own house lock me out because Palantir discovered about my passion for Moroccan tea or my kid flies a Chinese quadcopter in the backyard.