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By Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Email the author | Follow on Twitteron October 17, 2016 at 6:22 PM, updated October 17, 2016 at 8:01 PM

NEWARK — A 10-foot-tall, glass-and-chrome digital kiosk will soon be erected at Prudential Drive and Broad Street and could enhance the lives of residents, workers and visitors to the city, according to officials.

"This is the next generation's pay phone, or next two generations'," Jeff Knapp, CEO of SmartConnect, a California-based technology firm that is working on data collection censors for the kiosks.

Knapp was among dozens of city officials, tech company executives and academics present for the unveiling of the kiosk prototype at New Jersey Institute of Technology on Monday afternoon.

Officials say there will be up to 50 such structures throughout Newark, serving as electronic message boards, public internet browsers and, eventually, data collection stations for traffic, weather, security threats and other information.

At first, the kiosks will act as digital message boards, streaming information on large video screens about local concerts, art shows, rallies or other public events, as well as commercial advertising with a local bent, said Seth Wainer, the city's chief information officer.

The kiosk, designed by Ali Faraji of the Manhattan web development firm Aptinet, will also serve as a free, Android-driven internet browser, letting members of the public use a touch screen to log onto and surf the city's home page, Google, or any other site.

Digital kiosks to link Newark people to each other and the internet

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Additional space is available inside the towering kiosk to allow the addition of new technology, which officials said could include everything from scene or facial recognition to detect terror threats or criminal suspects, to wind direction and traffic data to calculate neighborhood air quality. They could also adopt technologies that may not exist just yet.

"Yogi Berra said 'It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future,' " said Donald Sebastian, president of NJIT.

The kiosks will be one of the first, and perhaps most visible projects of Brand Newark, a local program launched by Mayor Ras Baraka under President Obama's Smart Cities initiative.

Wainer, who went to work for Newark after serving in the Obama Administration, said at least 20 of the kiosks and as many as 50 of them would be erected in all areas of the city by the end of 2017. Wainer said the cost of the kiosk project was not available.

The high visibility of the kiosks, combined with their very real digital capabilities, is intended to give residents of Newark, as well as visitors and people who work there, a palpable sense that they are in a high-tech city of the future.

Baraka, who did not attend the unveiling, said in a statement that the kiosks were "a way that the neighborhoods can feel like this innovation is all around them and they are part of it."

The favorites menu atop the touch screen includes an icon for WBGO, Newark's public radio station known for its jazz music. Clicking on the the icon will take the user to the station's home page, and the kiosk will play jazz on its exterior speakers.

BrandNewark is part of the MetroLab Network, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that grew out of the Smart Cities initiative, which partners local governments with universities to harness technology in order to provide new or better public service. Newark is one of 38 cities nationwide, plus four counties, and a total 51 universities, that belong to the network, and the only member-city in New Jersey.

IBM and Bell Labs Nokia are other tech firms that will help develop the kiosks' future capabilities, and MetroLab's interim director, Ben Levine, told the gathering that Newark had shown itself to be one of MetroLab's more enlightened city-members by inviting participation of corporate citizens as well as academia to take part in its first big initiative.

"This model is the right model," he said.

The event was hosted by the New Jersey Innovation Institute, an NJIT non-profit corporation that helps develop technology into commercial products and public services.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Page 3 of 4Digital kiosks to link Newark people to each other and the internet | NJ.com

10/19/2016http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2016/10/digital_kiosks_to_link_newark_people_to_th...