Nokia working on tracking traffic via GPS-enabled cell phones
By Simon Sage on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 12:59 PM PST In GPS, Nokia
Today, the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Research Center, alongside the University of California and Berkley, is launching the Mobile Millenium, a pilot project to use GPS-capable phones to report traffic conditions. The Mobile Millenium project builds from the initial Mobile Century project started last February, and could revolutionize traffic reporting. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Mobile has some accurate traffic reporting in a few cities, which I think is based on magnetometers installed into those cities’ roads. Using existing GPS units is a considerably cheaper alternative, and will provider a broader set of data, regardless of whether or not the infrastructure is in place.
The pilot program is launching in the San Francisco Bay area, using the Nokia N95 - interested in trying it out? Go ahead and register now.
[via CN]
This is greate stuff! Do you know when it comes to rest of the world?
I guess that will all depend on how the testing here pans out. It will also take some time to develop the software for other platforms than Symbian - I reckon maybe another year before it gets widespread, presuming everything goes smoothly.