(TNS) — Columbus' first interactive kiosk experience — or "IKE" — is now available to the public.

The 8-foot-tall touch-screen electronic tablets provide users information on stores, restaurants, hotels, services, parks, transportation and local events.

IKE Smart City launched the first screen in the Short North on Wednesday outside the UPS Store on North High Street.

In September 2016, Eindhoven had a first: the launch of the very first CBS Urban Data Centre (UDC). The collaboration with Statistics Netherlands (CBS) is in keeping with Eindhoven’s ambition to develop into a smart society, which is a city that uses the power of technology and design for its inhabitants in the best possible way. Now, two years later, it is time to look back together with the municipality and with CBS to see what has been accomplished so far.

Parkland County is hoping to plant its flag as one of Canada’s great innovators.

The County has been named as a finalist in the country-wide Smart Cities Challenge, and if successful will land a $10 million grant to put a project aimed at growing the local agriculture industry into action.

The challenge is not for a brick and mortar project is geared at developing out of the box ideas for innovative social or infrastructure development.

A new flexible public transport service is now available in Eindhoven-Zuid, Waalre and Veldhoven. Hermes launched its “on-call” Bravoflex service.

Travellers can book a seat on a mini-bus using an app. The special bus picks up passengers at a selected bus stop. Passengers are then driven to their selected bus stop.

Columbus, Ohio has been named City of the Year in the Smart Cities Dive website’s awards for its work on transit and electrification.

The US city won the US Department of Transportation’s inaugural Smart City Challenge two years ago – and is rolling out a variety of smart city-related programmes.

Earlier this week, drowned out by the news that General Motors was going to close its historic assembly operations in Oshawa, Ont., there was another big industrial announcement in Ontario. It wasn’t about cars.

It was about chickens.

Maple Leaf Foods said it was going to build a new $660-million poultry-processing plant in London, Ont., that would eventually employ 1,450 workers. The Ontario government was going to provide $34.5 million in grants while the federal government was chipping in $28 million to build a state-of-the art facility.

Canada’s growing tech talent is drawing more investment to cities like Toronto and Montreal, but the country could lose momentum if it doesn’t do more to encourage industries to scale up, according to CBRE Ltd.

The country lacks “tech clusters,” dense areas of activity that contain critical mass for companies and educational and research institutions, the Toronto-based brokerage said in a report Thursday. Tech clusters like those in San Francisco and Seattle have helped propel those cities to global success but Toronto is the only Canadian city competitive enough to rank among powerhouses in North America.

A new European photonics project has kicked off in Eindhoven this week. The R&D costs that are involved in developing photonic chips are high, 12 12 partners from northwestern Europe are creating an open access pilot line that will drastically reduce costs and time for the pilot production of new products. The facility is meant for shared use by European SMEs. The 14 million euro project (OIP4NWE) is supported by the European Regional Development Fund and led by the Eindhoven University of Technology. The production facility that is going to be built is expected to create a thousand new companies and thousands of jobs. It should be fully operational in 2022.

The cities of Cambridge, Waterloo, Kitchener and the Region of Waterloo are launching a new public engagement platform: Engage Waterloo Region (EngageWR). The new tool gives citizens the opportunity to have their say on local projects and initiatives. With evolving needs and the advancement of online engagement, the cities and the Region have switched to a new platform that will better facilitate public engagement through more robust tools and a modern, user-friendly design.

A single registration gives participants full access to all online public engagement opportunities for the Region of Waterloo and the cities of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo. Registered users can tailor their preferences to receive notifications about topics that mean the most to them. The interactive and user-friendly site allows users to participate in different ways and stay updated throughout the lifetime of a project.