Residents of Italy's capital entered a new era on Saturday night as they turned their cell phones on.

In a technological leap, a futuristic urban map made its debut, featuring the dynamics of the city in real time. The map project, known as "Wiki City Rome," is continuously fed data through wireless technology such as cell phones and global positioning systems on city buses and taxis.

Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the project was launched during Rome's Notte Bianca (White Night), an all-night festival of 400 events, which drew about 2.5 million people in Rome's streets.

Matching the pulsing flow of activities, a big screen display in one of Rome's main squares showed a continuously changing picture of the city.

Red, yellow and green lights overlaid over a map of the city reflected the movements of hundreds of thousands of people, the real-time position of city buses and taxis, and crowds at the most popular events.

Anyone with an Internet connection was able to follow the unique map of the city and experience "a new awareness of how Romans move within their city in response to exceptional pulse of activities," said Kristian Kloeckl, a researcher at MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass.

The system, according to Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab, can help people to make more informed decisions about their surroundings, such as "avoiding traffic congestions, or knowing where people are congregating on a Saturday afternoon."

By Rossella Lorenzi