By plotting anonymous location data from all its users' mobile phones, CitySense produces a infrared-like map of San Francisco showing where the action is.
When you’re trying to get to work in the morning, knowing where other GPS users are all jammed up can help you avoid traffic and keep going. Fourteen hours later, when night falls, knowing where mobile phone users are all jammed up might just point you the hottest place in the city. So goes the logic behind CitySense, a new service that uses aggregate GPS data to tell what spots are hopping in San Francisco.
The application, now out in an alpha release for BlackBerry phones, anonymously submits GPS location data to Sense Networks, which in turn plots them and produces a map of “human traffic.” After installation, users in San Francisco can view a map of their city in real time with red clouds indicating other people, almost like an infrared heat map showing where others are clustered. Since knowing geographically where people gather doesn’t do most people any good, the application also accesses Google and Yelp to sift through business in that area that might be drawing a crowd, like bars, clubs and restaurants. It can even tell you, in total, whether the city is busier or quieter than usual on a given night.
The technology to make this happen, known as the Macrosense platform, has already been in use for measuring retail traffic (a more obvious commercial application), but CitySense was designed to see what else the data could accomplish. Sense Networks hopes to use feedback from its first users to help refine and tweak the system, but assures that the data it collects is strictly anonymous.
At the moment, only users of the BlackBerry Pearl, Gamma Ray and Curve phones are able to install CitySense, but the company will be releasing an iPhone version soon.
Showing 1 comment
RSSPhantomAlert Inc., a leading provider of passive, anti-radar and red-light camera products, has announced a limited, free distribution of a GPS-based database that locates and warns drivers about stationary red-light and speed cameras, as well as traditional speed trap locations.
Designed to work with the new PhantomAlert device of PhantomPlate Inc., the proprietary
database “…is the biggest breakthrough motorists have seen since radar detectors,†said Joe Scott, PhantomPlate’s director of marketing. The company’s new red-light, speed-
camera detector works by using GPS to map out the locations of all known traffic
enforcement locations. The location database is then loaded on a GPS product similar to a
radar detector.
PhantomAlert can store 150,000 positions in its database, and the company says all
cameras and speed traps in North America are covered. The proprietary database was
developed with input from motorists themselves. It is a dynamic source of up-to-date information that is verified by thousands of drivers with intimate knowledge of the
enforcement locations. Speed-camera locations are divided into different data sets to
distinguish between fixed speed cameras, mobile camera positions, red-light cameras,
schools, and high-collision areas. The PhantomAlert GPS speed-camera detector can also subdivide some of these groups by speed limit and allocate a voice alert.
The tiny PhantomAlert unit has an LED display. When a warning is triggered, a chime is
heard followed by an announcement. The speed limit at the camera site will flash before
going back to displaying the vehicle’s speed. This will typically happen at approximately
600 yards from the camera position. A second chime is heard at 200 yards from the camera
site, and if the vehicle is still over the speed limit, a continuous warning is heard until the vehicle speed drops to the speed limit, or the camera site is passed, at which time an “all clear†chime is heard.
PhantomAlert detects Gatso, Truvelo, SPECS, Speedmaster, DS2, traffic-light cameras,
high-traffic collision areas and all other permanent safety cameras. The detector will give an over-speed warning in close proximity to the camera if exceeding the speed limit but will automatically mute when within the speed limit. Drivers are warned of only cameras on their immediate routes, thereby negating false alerts. Drivers are also advised as they approach high-collision areas.
The unit announces close proximity to schools from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
helping assure that these important low-speed zones are honored. The unit displays the
vehicle’s current location as latitude and longitude, which can be relayed to emergency
services or breakdown authorities if needed. Priced at $219, the half-pound unit is ready to ship now.