This high-tech office will give everyone their own thermal bubble

Carlo Ratti is not a fan of the term "smart city."

The director of MIT's SENSEable City Lab believes the term favours technology over people. In his view, the emphasis should be on using new digital tools that improve quality of life and empower citizens. 

"The Internet, which has changed our lives over the past few years, is now entering physical space to become the Internet of things," Ratti, who was in Sydney, Australia for the Media Architecture Biennale, told Mashable Australia. "'Smart cities' is simply the application of the Internet of things at the scale of a city."