Which, indeed, they did not: 'Although you can never prove that correlation is equal to causation, certainly the most plausible explanation is that [the tremors] are related to the gas injection.'

In fact, they took the very valid point that coincidence (not even correlation, as CrimsonAvenger correctly notes that other seemingly similar cases do not display the same coincidence) does not imply causation, and then decided to breeze past it and declare that "certainly" that causation is the "most plausible explanation". In other words, coincidence --> correlation --> causation. I don't dispute that observation could be used to prove this causation, but where are those observations?

IMHO, just throwing more sensors at a city does not make it smarter. What city infrastructures are really missing now is smart data analytics to make sense of raw sensor data. Such analytical technology is only beginning to emerge (for example, in the space I know best, my own company TaKaDu which provides software to analyse the data from a rather sparse array of sensors in local water distribution networks, and monitor for faults). Without that, you end up with ranks of analysts and engineers staring at columns of numbers which go up and down for a long list of reasons, hunting for the few meaningful patterns or anomalies, with predictably limited results. "More data" or even "more mixing of different data" is just the first stepping stone.

On a related note, an interesting industry collaboration on these topics (again, within the water industry) is SWAN -- Smart Water Networks Forum, focused on the wide variety of data systems which go into managing water networks, one of the more hidden, but most critical, city infrastructures.

If I already have my smartphone with me, or indeed any phone with camera, and I can take pictures of my skin condition (or whatever), and write or talk about it, perhaps I could SEND the photos and comments to a REAL LIVE doctor, even one who works more than a few hours drive away, but within phone coverage, and get his NATURAL INTELLIGENCE comments, instructions, etc. over the phone? Is AI going to be better and cheaper than human doctors any time soon? And assuming it does get that way, why does it need to run on my smartphone? Through the magic that is the interweb (of which I believe smartphones are a part), would it not be easier to send the data to a slightly more powerful SERVER, and get my AI GP's advice from there? Slapping "AI" and "smartphone" on a problem does not make for a brilliant futuristic solution.

Yes. And no.

I tried reading your comment carefully, honest. I even focused on words 7-10, "hashes relying on is", because they seemed to almost make sense. But I'm afraid the bottom line is that there just isn't enough English, sense, and/or cryptography in that paragraph.