traffic

According to Internet statistics firm ComScore, unique visits to Facebook rocketed 89 percent between May 2006 and May 2007, from about 14 million unique visitors to 26.6 million.

Average minutes spent on the site per users also rose from 138 to 186--a 35 percent increase--and the number of pages viewed rose 143 percent, from 6,530 to 15,841. This coincides with Facebook's decision to "open its doors" last fall, no longer requiring a corporate or university e-mail address in order to gain access to the site.

Consequently, most of the growth charted by ComScore is … Read more

The Slingbox is known best for its ability to let consumers watch their home TV channels remotely using a laptop or smart phone. But a local San Francisco news station has found a way to utilize the trapezoid-shaped set-top box to cheaply and easily deliver live news, traffic and weather updates wirelessly back to its studio.

The news operations director at CBS 5, Don Sharp, devised a way to replace more than 20 of its cameras affixed to the tops of local bridges, freeways and buildings that use microwave technology to relay video back to the station with smaller cameras … Read more

Google Analytics relaunched today, adding several new visualization tools and ways to share data with others. The tool gives Web site owners a free and relatively easy system to keep track of how people are accessing content on their site, including ways to track which content is getting the most views, how much time each user is spending on the site, and the number of visits by time of day. There's also a handy map overlay which will show you where your users are, right down to the city they live in.

One of the updated features is the Analytics dashboard, which is now completely customizable and has simplified data. Users can relocate, add, and remove the various data widgets, in a similar fashion to that of iGoogle. Also new is the option to e-mail or export reports as PDFs, which can now be scheduled to be sent out automatically every day, week, month or quarter using a built-in calendar. Previously you were only able to export it as a non-human-friendly XML file.

The service is mainly an extension of Google's AdWords program, which lets site owners purchase words that link to various parts of their site via contextual ads that show up on Google or partnered search engine results. But even if you're not interested in making money it's a free Analytics solution that requires no software, just a line of code on any page you want to keep track of. If you're a WordPress user, there's even a plug-in to automatically add it to your site. Blogger users are also able to add it by tweaking their blog template.

There's more information about the update on the Google Analytics Blog post. For more screenshots of the new dashboard, keep reading. … Read more

There are two major lessons to be learned from this weekend's fiery freeway collapse in Oakland, California.

The first lesson is that, despite all that concrete and steel, when faced with intense heats close to 3,000°F, freeways built to withstand earthquakes crumble like toys.

The second is that we generally take even heavily congested commutes for granted. San Francisco Bay Area commuters are now looking at months of overcrowded and out-of-the-way alternative routes while contractors and engineers clean up the mess of melted roadway.

Thankfully, software developers are commuters just like you and me. I've … Read more

In the wake of a tanker truck crash that caused a freeway collapse in the San Francisco Bay Area, Web sites are providing invaluable traffic information to commuters.

The crash occurred at 3:45 a.m. Sunday in Oakland, igniting 8,600 gallons of gasoline on the Interstate 80 interchange and causing a section of the I-580 overpass (Google satellite image) just east of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to collapse onto the I-880 roadway below.

Witnesses reported fireballs reaching more than 200 feet into the air. The truck driver escaped with second-degree burns. There were no reports of fatalities … Read more

No offense to our friends across the pond, but there's apparently something about U.K. traffic that inspires questionable technologies. (Remember the "Taxi Hailer"?) Perhaps these concepts are born of frustration, a futile effort to try anything to lessen the madness of the road. Or maybe they're just dumb ideas.

Whatever the reason, now we have "qStart," a device that plugs into the cigrette lighter and vocalizes what Coolest-Gadgets calls a "friendly reminder" to make sure you know which side of the road to drive on. "Because it is often just … Read more

It's official: Crave has a link to Paris Hilton. A couple of weeks ago we panned the idea of this car-board black box device for any number of reasons. But today we read on GeekSugar that Kathy and Rick Hilton expressed interest in the Gadget Universe product for their ubiquitous daughter to keep tabs on paparazzi and other media hounds. We're not sure what to make of this latest development, but we do agree with GeekSugar's trenchant observation: "Personally I wonder if Paris really needs any more cameras around her than she already has."

Google Maps now has traffic data in several cities. Traffic data is displayed using the now-standard industry color-coding: Green = fast. Yellow = maddening. Red = miserable.

Google joins Yahoo and Microsoft in providing traffic data. Ask.com and Mapquest still don't.

Google still doesn't provide directions for walkers (as Ask.com does), nor for public transit, except for 10 oddly chosen cities (Tampa, Honolulu, and so on, skipping New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the like.)

None of the sites do what you really need: Create routes that take traffic into account, directing you around jams.

Related: Google Maps adds subway stops, building outlines to cities.… Read more

We at Crave would never advocate speeding or any other illegal activity on the road, but we do think it's only fair that motorists get a fighting chance against overzealous, quota-driven traffic cops (this is America, dammit). Besides, this windshield speed projector can actually help you keep your eyes on the road, making it easier to dial a cell phone phone or watch a DVD while behind the wheel.

GlobalTop Technology's "GPS HUD Speed Meter" projects your miles per hour on the windshield so your eyes don't need to drop down to the dashboard for … Read more