Israeli start-up Waze is at the Where 2.0 conference this week showing off its service for collecting real-time traffic and driving condition data from its users. Currently running on 80,000 smartphones in Israel, Waze shows you traffic flows on highways, and unlike other traffic services, it also shows it on side streets, and it creates routing advice based on that data.
The service allows users to report accidents, speed traps, cops by the side of the road, and other traffic-related items. What's cool is that these items fade automatically over time, and there's also the possibility for the system to ping a driver as he or she passes a previously reported incident to see if it's still there.
Waze on a mobile device shows you nearby traffic and incidents.
(Credit: Waze)CEO Noam Bardin tells me that in Israel, Waze doesn't even use commonly available street maps as its base layer of data. Instead, it tracks users (with their permission), and builds maps from those traces. Then it asks users to name the roads.
In a technology utopia, this product makes beautiful sense. But the real world is messy. You can't roll out a peer-to-peer traffic service and expect it to work perfectly from day one, since it needs a critical mass of users. Realistically, Waze is going to have to roll out its service, in big countries like the U.S., region by region. However, smartphone app stores are national, so there may be unhappy users from under-represented locations. (At least in the U.S., the company will use existing maps as a starting place.)
Then there's the safety question. While the demo I saw, on an Android phone, had simple and big buttons on it like "speed camera," it still represents a distraction, and in our society all it will take is one user causing an accident while reporting another to put the hurt on this feature.
I'll leave privacy and power consumption issues as exercises for the reader.
It's also worth noting that in-car navigator company Dash Navigation launched a product with a similar vision, and it hasn't really worked as business. The company, which originally made navigation hardware, is now just in the software licensing business. The consumer navigation products were never price-competitive with the increasingly higher-powered run-of-the mill navigators from the likes of Garmin and TomTom.
Bardin also belives that Dash's problem was mostly on money side: The unit was too expensive, and furthermore, he says, "If you want to have a community product, you can't charge the members." He points to services like YouTube that take content from, and provide value to, their users, but that have to go to other routes, like advertising, to make money.
Waze, Bardin says, will be a free app for the smartphone users who get it from Waze directly. Revenues will come from selling ads, and from selling the technology other companies (like mobile carriers) to package or re-sell.
When the iPhone 3.0 software comes out, and with it the new terms of service for developers that allow the release of turn-by-turn navigation products, we're going to see several products competitive with standard dedicated dash-top navigators. Waze is different from almost every other navigation product I've seen, but I hope it succeeds, if only because I like the idea of a route navigation system that gets better as more people use it.
In the U.S., Waze is in alpha testing now, for Android users only.
The Web app shows you all the Waze drivers.
(Credit: Waze)Over the past few weeks, numerous reports have surfaced suggesting that the mythical Google GDrive, an online storage service developed by the online giant, might be a reality even though the company has kept its alleged existence under wraps.
Blogger Brian Ussery has uncovered an interesting hint that the GDrive might actually exist. The Google Pack software bundle, which is for Windows users who want to use software from Google and its partners, includes a small piece of code apparently containing the GDrive's product category and description.
Here is what one blogger discovered.
(Credit: Google)"Online file backup and storage...GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and document," the description reads. "GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device - be it from your desktop, Web browser or cellular phone."
The description may be the most reliable indicator thus far that Google will be unveiling a product called the GDrive in the future. Prior to this discovery, rumors were swirling that a "Google Web Drive" was coming after a "Move to Collection" command for handling folders was found in the new Picasa for Mac beta version. Google confirmed that the option was included in the release, but it removed it a day later in an update.
Meanwhile, a Blogoscoped post last week reported that the blog had found an online document mentioning a "Google Web Drive." Once the report surfaced, the document was apparently deleted.
So far, Google has yet to confirm the existence of the GDrive or Google Web Drive. But as more indicators crop up, it's only a matter of time before the company needs to say something about the rumored storage service. Until then, look for more details to emerge, whether Google wants them to or not.
For quite some time there have been rumblings about "GDrive," some kind of online storage site. Despite the demise of AOL's XDrive storage service and the closure of various not-so-great-after-all Google projects, including Google's Palimpsest project for storing research data, the possibility remains that the company could offer some sort of online storage system. Google is after all a big fan of cloud computing, and data storage is an important piece of the possible architecture.
A project called Platypus in 2006 indicated that Google employees get internal storage, which makes sense even from a backup and corporate IT perspective. There were some new noises on Sunday at Google Blogoscoped that sniffed out references to another possibility, though, called Google Web Drive.
The new Picasa for Mac beta version included a "Move to Collection" command for handling folders, and one option is "Google Web Drive," according to the post. Google confirmed that the menu item was present in the software but was removed a day after release in an update, but the company wouldn't comment further.
And a further Blogoscoped posting Tuesday referred to a now-deleted online document that mentioned not just Platypus, but also Google Web Drive.
Google already offers online storage, of course, with Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa Web Albums, YouTube and any number of other services. The question is whether the company sees merit to a general-purpose file repository. Microsoft offers such a beast with its free 25GB storage through SkyDrive--helpfully synchronizing local and cloud-based files through Live Mesh, and Yahoo has its Briefcase, so there are precedents among competitors.
But here's the catch. The more useful an online storage system is, the harder it is to build and the more expensive it is to run.
A password-protected general-purpose online file system is easier to do with a basic Web site for uploading or downloading files. But what about tighter integration with computers, so for example you could set up Quicken to back up records to an Internet-based service the same way it can with, for example, a USB drive? How about natively supporting different operating systems, each with different file systems? How about automated backup of your entire hard drive?
The technology quickly gets more complicated, and storage is something you don't want to mess up. People get angry when their data disappears.
But it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Google could offer it to paying Google Apps corporate customers, either included in their subscriptions or as a premium option. That would defray the expense of operating at scale and limit it to a more manageable size of users while potentially making Google Apps more appealing.
The other day I picked up a rental car while visiting Los Angeles. In just a few days it ended up costing me well over the price of gas it would have taken to drive my own car there and back. A smart tool called CostToDrive would have helped me figure this out before I made the trip. It calculates how much a trip is going to cost you based on how far you're traveling, combined with the fuel efficiency of your car and average price of gas. Assuming you have to fill up when your tank is about empty, it tells you precisely where to go to get the cheapest gallon too.
The tool has records for several types of vehicles, going back to 1999. If you've got an older vehicle or one that's not on the list, you can manually plug in both how big your tank is and the general highway mileage. From there it can do the math and give you the magic number.
There are a few things to note with this system. The first is that this is currently for the U.S. only, and your mileage (literally) may vary. The tool does not take into account any driving you'd do once at your destination, and city and highway mileage can be drastically different depending on the vehicle. Also, estimations are currently only one-way, which means you'll need to double the price if you plan on coming back.
See also AAA's Trip Gas Price finder, which is a little less exact with the pricing (but does round trips) and GasAddict.com which supports multiple stops but is the hardest of the bunch to use.
[via TechnoSpot via DownloadSquad]
How much is your trip going to cost? Let CostToDrive.com do the math for you.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Google Maps directions now are augmented with Street View imagery, where it's available.
(Credit: Google)Google has built its Street View into Google Maps' ability to provide driving directions, the company said Tuesday.
With the feature, a small camera icon appears next to the intersections in the turn-by-turn directions. Clicking on the icon brings up a view of the intersection so people can see the area in question.
Google Street View is available in 44 areas of the United States, and there are strong signs Google is bringing Street View to Europe. Street View is available through the Google Maps programming interface so that those using Google Maps can add Street View abilities to their Web sites.
Skyhook Wireless' geopositioning can be useful, but rarely does it save you from a $400 speeding ticket. A start-up named Trapster is trying to change that.
The company has taken a creative spin on using geopositioning to help lead-footed drivers avoid known and newly discovered speed traps and other police dragnets. By installing the application on your mobile phone you'll get heads up on speed cameras, red-light cameras, hiding places, and live police while out and about. The application uses Skyhook Wireless' Wi-Fi and cell tower location positioning system to keep tabs on where you are while you're driving around. It also blends in GPS to give you more precise positioning on city streets.
The data comes from other tipsters on the Trapster network, and is updated frequently. Creator Pete Tenereillo tells me there only need to be about 10 active users in each city to provide a reasonable amount of coverage for live police and new traps on major thoroughfares, a number which has already been met in places like Rhode Island, Florida, and San Diego.
To keep users tipping, the service uses a karma system and a confidence scale to make sure tips aren't providing useless tips. Users can also create new trap alerts for others right on their phones. Tenereillo says the ratio of people tipping to simple leechers is hovering at about 40 percent. Part of that is because of the simplicity of adding new traps, which is a one button affair if you have the application running on your Nokia or Blackberry smartphone.
Coming in a couple of weeks is an iPhone version of the application which will take advantage of the geopositioning that made its way into the maps application in an earlier software update. iPhone users will get the same audio alerts and live-positioning locating, with less position accuracy because of the lack of GPS, something Tenereillo is hoping will be added in the next hardware revision.
Despite the free price, there are a few hindrances. The stock warning sounds are a little alarming, but you can go in and rename and rerecord the warning with your own voice. You're also missing out on the radar and laser protection you'd get with a real radar detector, which tend to work a little faster than the mobile phone alerts. I'm still in love with the idea though, and for the cheapskate out there with a compatible handset, this is almost as good an alternative as being a safe and responsible driver.
Related: Avoid traffic jams with Commuter Feed
See speed traps and other police gotchas in your area with Trapster. While not as accurate for things like highway speed traps, knowing if you're close to a red light or speed camera could save you from a big ticket if you're a leadfoot driver.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Microsoft's hard drive in the cloud is now a reality.
On Thursday, Microsoft removed the beta tag from the Windows Live SkyDrive service. More importantly, it upped the amount of free online storage to 5GB, giving users roughly the same amount of storage that comes on a new Eee PC. That's up from a recent cap of 1GB.
The service allows for personal folders as well as ones that are shared with a select group of friends, or the public at large. Microsoft is also expanding the service to 38 countries or regions including large swaths of Europe, Central and South America, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Taiwan.
I see the launch of SkyDrive as a key piece of Microsoft's effort to build what some think of as a cloud OS--a collection of services that includes identity, messaging, photo management, contacts, as well as storage. Storage is probably the most straightforward piece, but important nonetheless.
Mobile users away from their computers have had a handful of options for directory services in the past couple of years. There's TellMe (555-TELL), FREE-411, CALL-411, and GOOG-411 to name some of the free ones. There are also the official ones from each of the carriers that are billed a la carte--and usually at a high price.
This morning FREE-411 (one of the older services of the crowd) has announced a partnership with a useful driving directions service Dial DIR-ECT-IONS to help people find phone numbers and addresses for businesses or residential listings along with step-by-step directions for how to get there. The service starts next month in three major cities (Los Angeles, the SF Bay Area, and Chicago) and then nationwide in April.
This is immensely helpful if your handset isn't on a data plan, or you're away from a phonebook or map. Competitor TellMe, which is owned by Microsoft, has had such a mixed feature using its downloadable phone app, but no such service for its text, or 800-based phone services.
(Credit:
SanDisk)
As their capacities have grown, USB thumb drives have become the method of choice to transfer data between PCs for many consumers. Some have also started using them as backups for their hard drives.
The latest SanDisk Cruzer Titanium Plus flash drive takes the concept even one step further by making backups of its 4GB storage automatically to an online company, BeInSync. The $60 drive comes with six months of this online service, after which an annual fee of $30 is charged.
When the Cruzer is plugged into a connected machine, the contents are automatically synchronized both ways and the data can also be accessed via the Web site. According to BeInSync, communication to and from the device is secured using 256-bit SSL encryption to ensure that your private data remains private.
(Source: Crave Asia)
The Gdrive, the mythical, hypothetical Google-provided and free Web-based storage drive, took a giant step toward reality earlier this week. As most of America waddled out of its tryptophan-induced haze on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the myth could become real within a few months.
However, you don't have to wait that long to get free storage from Google. Thanks to Gspace and Gmail Drive, you can start using your five-gigabyte-plus of Gmail storage as a virtual drive right now. This second, even.
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