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SignalGuru uses a smartphone camera to help you manage traffic lights, save fuel
Nothing burns fuel (or patience) faster than stop and go traffic, something MIT researchers are hoping to minimize with SignalGuru. The smartphone-based system commands you to slow down or speed up based on whether the light is green, yellow or red to help avoid gas-guzzling activities like idling and accelerating -- reducing fuel consumption by 20 percent. Unlike Audi's Travolution system that relies on WiFi and 3G to communicate with traffic lights, this latest development uses your smartphone's camera to detect signal status and create a Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA), which will predict and learn traffic light patterns. So far it's only been tested on the iPhone in Massachusetts and Singapore, but researchers hope to expand and commercialize the system, eventually including voice prompts and features like GPS navigation with add-ons such as parking space availability and local gas prices. Anti-road rage technology not included.
Vection Field controls traffic at SIGGRAPH, fictional cities from the future (video)
So, let's set the stage. You're walking down a semi-busy street in a semi-foreign city. You're curiously hanging close to the middle of the sidewalk. You bust out your smartphone and figure out that your so-called engagement just got "Complicated." Your gait has an irregularity. You look up and spot what appears to be a local, eerily perturbed and somewhat flummoxed by your current position. You dodge left. So does he. You dodge right, knowing full well that it'll only complicate matters when he follows suit. Before long, you're tiptoeing around a stranger while a full-on traffic jam builds up behind you. You've just ruined the universe, and that's not doing anyone any good. The solution? The University of Electro-Communications's Vection Field, which hones in on large moving visual cues that "induce a sense of self-movement." Funny enough, the lenticular lenses pathway here at SIGGRAPH actually worked -- we never expected an optical illusion to solve such a monumental issue, but we'll take it. Vid's past the break, per usual.
Insert Coin: YouTurn accelerometer-based turn signal system for cyclists
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Many of us who bike in the city ride in constant fear of being tapped by a taxi cab, or crushed by a bus. There's no way to completely eradicate the risk of being run over by a much larger motorized vehicle, but making yourself easily visible -- both at night and during the day -- can certainly make a difference. Smart cyclists use hand signals long before they need to make a turn, but the YouTurn signal system aims to make those indicators difficult for drivers to miss, with an accelerometer-based gadget that illuminates an arrow in the direction of your turn. If you want to turn left, for example, simply point your hand to the left, and the device will flash a giant yellow chevron. The prototype you'll see in the video below is integrated with a glove, though the final version will simply attach to the back of your hand, and can be stored in a bag when you're not on your bike. There's no mention of durability or waterproofing, though since the inventor's objective is to enhance safety, we imagine he'll be taking precautions to avoid electrocution in the rain. YouTurn inventor Jack O'Neal launched a Kickstarter page to help fund his project, and is accepting preorders at $50 a pop. There's no final pricing listed at this point, but at 50 bucks for a first-run YouTurn, we were happy to make the pledge. We hope to see O'Neal meet his funding goal and send these to production, but until then, we'll keep looking both ways and hoping for the best.
Google Maps brings live traffic coverage to 13 European countries, makes work weeks even shorter
The next time you head out for a leisurely Sunday drive along the autobahn, you might wanna take a minute to consult Google Maps' live traffic feature, now available in Germany and 12 other nations across Europe. Announced earlier this week, the new addition offers regularly updated coverage of all highways and major thoroughfares in countries like Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland, while bringing more detailed street-level data to users in the UK. Europe's road warriors will also be able to use a legend to learn about traffic patterns at specific times or days of the week, making it even easier for you to micro-manage your summer getaway to the Swiss Alps. Learning how to fit all your luggage into the back of a Twingo, however, is another matter altogether.
Waze makes plans to deal with LA's Carmageddon
Here in Los Angeles, there's a cataclysmic event about to happen. No, it's not the next earthquake (as far as we know) or an alien invasion. It's Carmageddon, which is what the locals have started calling a closure period over July 16 and 17 where the city will shut down the 405 highway from the 10 to the 101. That's a huge stretch of road in a city that depends on its cars, so people are expecting the fallout to be pretty monstrous -- while lots of folks (including me -- my apartment is about two blocks from the 405 on Santa Monica) are hoping to just stay home for the weekend, we've all got places to go and things to do, so we may end up navigating the traffic anyway. iPhone app Waze is helping to jump on this grenade -- the company has teamed up with Los Angeles' KABC 7 to bring real-time traffic updates to and from the iPhone all throughout Carmageddon weekend, both using its social mobile network of users (which just recently hit 4.5 million drivers around the world) to track movement on the road, but also to connect the TV station with volunteer users, who can report where reporters might not actually be. The company's set up an anti-Carmageddon website, and hopes to provide alternate routes and information to frustrated drivers all weekend long. I hope it helps -- this particular stretch of the 405 is about six lanes wide, and serves about 500,000 people on any given weekend, so presumably all of those people will be off the highway and looking for other streets to use. Fingers crossed that it's not quite as apocalyptic as it seems it might be.
iPad makes up one percent of global web browsing, magic
This is surely the sort of thing Apple likes to see -- it might not be the prettiest graph in the world, but it certainly drives home the fairly consistent growth of the iPad's global web browsing share. Back in April of last year, we reported that the company's "magical" tablet had nabbed 0.03 percent of global web traffic in its first week. The decimal point has moved a couple of places, according to NetMarketShare, with the device now making up more than one percent of worldwide web browsing. That number is even higher in the US, at 2.1 percent, with the iPhone and Android devices pulling in 2.9 and 2.6 percent, respectively. As for Apple's share of tablet traffic -- well, there's not a heck of a lot to report on that front. [Thanks, Alan]
Visualized: a zettabyte
Remember the good old days when a gigabyte was considered a lot of space? Improvements in hard disk technology have allowed the humble magnetic drive to reach the dizzying heights of multiple terabytes of storage, but Cisco foresees a future that's a few orders of magnitude more impressive. Pinpointing 2015 as the commencement of what it calls the zettabyte era, the company has put together a handy infographic to show us just how much data can be fit into one: you can alternatively think of it as the equivalent of 250 billion DVDs, 36 million years of HD video, or the volume of the Great Wall of China if you allow an 11oz cup of coffee to represent a gigabyte of data. So "zetta" must be Greek for one hell of a lot, but what Cisco expects is that we'll be pushing that much information around the web each year by 2015. Any bets on how many exabytes of it will be to stream videos of cats diving into cardboard boxes?
iPad accounts for 97 percent of US tablet traffic online
It's no secret that the iPad commands a serious lead in the battle for tablet mindshare, but comScore's new Device Essentials traffic-tracking service shows just how much that translates into market dominance. According to the web monitoring company, the iPad and its successor account for 89 percent of tablet internet use globally, and 97 percent here in the US. Of course, the slate segment is still young and accounts for only a tiny percentage of total traffic. And, it's worth noting, the iPad has a significant advantage in being the first to hit shelves. If you want to dig a little deeper, hit up the source link for the PR and a few more charts.
Apple wants to make your calendar sensitive to location and traffic, get you there on time
As Apple rushed to allay privacy concerns over its handling of location data, it also let slip that it was working on a "crowd-sourced traffic database". Now a patent application dating from 2009 has been made public which suggests Apple is thinking of this technology not merely as an add-on to iOS Maps, but as something which could feed into other areas such as calendars and alarms. The implicit suggestion is that if Apple can figure out how long it will take you to get from A to B, then it should be able to adjust your appointments to make sure you get there on time without having to go on a rampage. Until then, if everyone just stays out of the way, then no one will get hurt.
TomTom sends HD Traffic update to all Live models, extends Traffic Manifesto to US (video)
TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn announced at a NYC event last night that the company's HD Traffic service, previously only included with the Go 2535 M Live, would be available on all U.S. Live models, including the Go 740 Live and XL 340 Live. Traffic updates will be one component of the subscription-based Live, which will also see a 50 percent price drop, to $60 per year. This is all part of TomTom's grand Traffic Manifesto, which aims to cut traffic by five percent overall. Achieving this rather lofty goal in the U.S. would require 10 percent of the country's drivers to be using Live, which transmits real-time traffic data using a dedicated AT&T SIM. The company says drivers using the service themselves can expect to see travel times reduced by up to 15 percent. Our commute often involves a pajama-clad hike from the bed to the desk, so if you're currently a subscriber who drives to work, let us know if Traffic is making a dent in your travels.
Apple building 'crowd-sourced traffic' service for iPhone users
An interesting bit of information has come out from Apple's announcement today addressing the location-tracking controversy. Apparently Apple is working on a crowd-sourced traffic service for iPhone users. From the press release: What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data? Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years. For a few years now, Apple has been rumored to be beefing up its maps offerings in iOS. In 2009 and 2010 Apple bought both Placebase and Poly9, two companies with map and navigation-oriented products. Then in December of last year, Apple posted job placement openings looking for engineers with "experience developing navigation software" to "deliver the next generation of Apple products." While today's news of a crowd-sourced traffic database tells us nothing too concrete about Apple's maps plans, it does appear that Apple is gearing up to add turn-by-turn direction and increased real-time accuracy to its future map offerings on iOS. The third-party market for navigation apps is certainly hopping, so it makes sense for Apple to match up with Google's turn-by-turn support, which is baked into Android. (Apple can't do turn-by-turn directions on the existing Maps app, because it uses Google's data, and the licensing agreements covering that data don't permit it.)
Apple confirms it's working on a traffic service, moving away from Google Maps?
It wasn't the main thrust of its "Q&A on Location Data" this morning, but Apple did also make a bit of news while it tried to ease those privacy concerns about how it's handling your data. The company says it "is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database," and that it's hoping to provide iPhone users with an "improved traffic service in the next couple of years." It didn't divulge much more than that, unfortunately, but that little detail lines up with some other navigation-related developments out of the company as of late. It acquired web mapping firm Poly9 last July (in addition to Google Maps rival Placebase in late 2009), and just last month a couple of job postings revealed that it was looking for folks to "radically improve" the iOS Maps experience. Add all those together and it's starting to look an awful lot like a shift away from Google Maps in favor of an all-Apple solution -- much like how the company relied on Skyhook until it could roll its own WiFi geolocation service.
Apple officially answers questions on location tracking, says it doesn't do it
1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone? Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so. The big hubbub that arose last week around location tracking within the iPhone has now received its due response from Apple itself. Firstly, the Cupertino company claims it does not, and has no plans to, track users' iPhones. What it's actually doing is "maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location," which are then used to provide speedier calculation of your position when you want to use the device's maps or other location-based services. The data collection that was recently brought to the public attention represents, according to Apple, the location of WiFi hotspots and cell towers around you, not your actual iPhone. Still, the fact iPhones have been shown to store as much as a year's worth of data is considered a bug by Apple, who plans to limit that period to a week in a future software update. The additional issue of data being collected after users turned off Location Services is also a bug, also to be fixed by Apple in that upcoming update. Left unanswered, however, are the questions of when Apple "uncovered" these bugs, as it claims, and why the fix for them is only coming now. Specialists have known about this behavior since at least September of last year. Either way, the software remedy is promised over the next few weeks, while the next major iteration of iOS should encrypt the cache file that's been the subject of all the scrutiny. You'll find the full Q&A after the break. P.S. -- One of Apple's answers seems to disclose an extra bit of new information: "Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years."
EU investigation to take a closer look at net neutrality
The EU has commissioned an investigation into how European ISPs handle traffic and manage their networks, in a move that could lead to new legislation on net neutrality. The investigation, to be conducted by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), will cover both mobile and fixed Internet providers, with particularly close attention paid to any barriers consumers may face when changing operators. BEREC will also consult with consumers and corporations to determine whether or not ISPs are being completely transparent about their traffic management practices, or advertised connection speeds. In a speech delivered yesterday, Neelie Kroes, the European Commission's Vice President for the Digital Agenda, admitted that some ISPs need to restrict some bandwidth-heavy services in order to protect their networks, but promised to publicly name and take action against any operators found to be stifling competition or consumer choice: "Mark my words: if measures to enhance competition are not enough to bring Internet providers to offer real consumer choice, I am ready to prohibit the blocking of lawful services or applications. It's not OK for Skype and other such services to be throttled. That is anti-competitive. It's not OK to rip off consumers on connection speeds." It's unlikely, however, that the EU will implement legislation as pointed as the net neutrality rules the FCC unveiled in the US, nor as expansive as the law that Chile introduced last summer. In a report issued yesterday, the EU affirmed that "operators should be allowed to determine their own business models and commercial arrangements" -- words that no doubt delighted many in Europe's ISP community. The results of BEREC's investigation are due to be published by the end of the year.
IBM shows off Smarter Traveler traffic prediction tool
Traffic alerts on GPS devices may be old hat at this point, but there's obviously still plenty of room for improvement, and IBM now says it's managed to do just that with its new "Smarter Traveler" traffic prediction tool. Developed with the help of UC Berkeley's transportation group and the California Department of Transportation, the tool relies on predictive analytics software, GPS monitoring and sensors already on the roads to not only offer alerts, but build a model of each person's usual commuter route. Once the system is trained a bit, commuters are able to check out what's effectively a forecast of their entire route before they even leave the house, rather than simply be alerted to traffic problems before it's too late to avoid them. Head on past for the complete press release, and a quick video explanation of how it works.
TomTom puts its HD Traffic service data in a browser, lets everyone use it for free
We've gotten lost and found our way home again courtesy of many a navigation system over the years, but if ever we're battling not just confusing roadways but also unpredictable traffic patterns it's TomTom we want on our side. The HD Traffic service the company offers is always spot-on, and now you can access that constantly-updated and really quite detailed data from your web browser. However, there's a catch: right now it's only available in Europe and South Africa. Also, the interface is a bit clunky. Oh, and the presentation isn't nearly as nice as on the company's mobile apps. But it is all free, and so you really can't complain too much about any of that. Full details in the PR below.
Google Maps Navigation for Android adds real-time traffic re-routing
Google Maps Navigation becomes more of a threat to the traditional in-car GPS business seemingly on a daily basis, and they're taking another stab at it today with the addition of traffic re-routing capability in the Android app (which, while technically still in beta, is pretty darn solid) in both North America and Europe. Of course, Maps has had access to traffic information for a long time, so this is a natural progression -- and just as Google uses an interesting combination of sources (including phones) to cull that data, it's employing some smart schemes for re-routing that take into account both current and historical information about your route. The update's available today.
iOS now accounts for 2% of global web browsing traffic, Chrome rounds the 10% mark
After the desktop stalwarts of Windows 7 and Mac OS, the world's third most popular platform for web browsing turns out to be Apple's iOS. The software that makes iPhones, iPod touches and iPads tick has been identified by Net Applications as responsible for over two percent of the global traffic data analyzed in the web statistician's latest report -- the first time iOS has crossed that threshold. The UK and Australia had more than five percent each, while the USA clocked in at 3.4 percent. Leaving operating systems aside, Chrome has continued its steady growth on the browser front and now stands at a 10.7 percent share, more than doubling its slice from this time last year. Internet Explorer overall has dipped to its lowest level yet, at 56 percent, however Net Applications indicates IE8 is showing nice growth. So at least it's looking like we're finally ready to bury the zombies known as IE6 and IE7, whatever other browser we choose to migrate to.
UK government spends £2.8 million on road safety browser MMO
Children are generally far more interested in video games than in mundane things like crossing the road safely. You can almost understand why the UK's Department of Transport would have something like Code of Everand developed -- it's a browser-based game that's meant to help teach children proper road safety procedure, and in that light you can also see why the game would be free to play. The fact that the game has cost a grand total of £2.8 million in development and operation, however, is a bit harder to justify. The game's active playerbase is suspected to number in the low thousands, with 170,000 total registered accounts. Unlike other free-to-play games, the game is meant as a public service and thus doesn't have any sort of cash shop, meaning that its future is in a fair bit of doubt. A quick perusal of the game's play guide makes the connection to actual road safety rather dubious, which would mark the game as a novel and interesting idea that's remarkably expensive. The game's future past March is in doubt, contingent upon subsequent evaluation.
Ford launches SYNC Destinations, the free app for people who go places in cars
Smartphone user? Regardless of platform you have no shortage of navigation options, and now Ford has added another way to get where you're going -- if you're also an owner of a SYNC TDI-compatible car, anyway. Using the new SYNC Destinations app (available today for iOS and Android, with BlackBerry coming soon) you can more efficiently pre-plan your route. The app lets you pick a destination, view real-time traffic updates, even check out congestion predictions based on weather, time of day, and holidays. It's a feature that would have been pretty handy last week when we were simultaneously dealing with a heck of a blizzard and a whole lot of people trying to flee their in-laws. The app will even suggest what time you should leave to avoid the most headaches, a potential boon for those desperately seeking any excuse to hit the road a little early. It is, however, just for planning, sending your route to the car and then disabling the phone's display when you cross the magic 5mph threshold. It's safer that way, after all. Full details are in the PR below and if you're on the lucky two supported platforms with a suitably compatible car you can download today for free. %Gallery-112194%
