Gizmodo
We're excited about the upcoming Dash Express GPS because it corrects so much of what's gone wrong with in-car navigation. In the end, you get the same green, yellow and red traffic indicators on highways that Google maps gets, plus that on some local roads. No other GPS has this. Because each unit is basically a two-way pager, it records the traffic you experience and shares it with others. It's a simple idea, perhaps, but to really harness the potentially unwieldy power of crowdsourcing, you need rules:
1. Each Dash Express anonymously and automatically sends its position and speed back to the Dash serversSo what you're probably getting is that the first guy with a Dash is going to be like the goose at the head of the flock, making everything better for the rest. How many drivers in one metro area are needed until the system of realtime crowdsourced data is reliable?2. Dash also receives traffic info from road sensors, commercial fleets and other sources through our partnership with Inrix [shown in dotted colored lines]
3. Dash then calibrates these sources against "ground truth" provided by the Dash devices actually driving the roads every day [shown in solid colored lines]
4. Dash then sends out updates to all of the Dash devices in the area with current road speeds
For an averaged sized metropolitan area it takes just a few hundred units for the Dash Driver Network to provide live up-to-the-minute data for most major roads during commute hours.For a major city, the number is more like 1,000, but then again, major commuter cities are probably where Dash will sell the most units up front, so I see it as a self-fulfilled prophesy kind of thing. Right now, Dash is looking only at data from its beta run, so for instance the LA map above was filled in by only about 40 testers. (Note the dotted lines where new Dash users will still rely on Inrix data.)
When the device hits the market, all those lines will go solid—green or red depending on whatever kind of hellish commuter traffic you're in for. Dash can steer you around it maybe, but it lacks the guided surface-to-surface missileage to actually make the other commuters go away. [Dash via NaviGadget]
Comments
This type of technology really needs to start being built into new cars.
It's an amazing concept, but I just fear that the upfront cost and monthly service fee will be prohibitively expensive...
also record the POLICE radar and lidar (traps) and share it with everyone.
This is a great idea and I was thinking along these lines when I tried my first GPS last summer. But you'd have to have this technology in a lot of different types of devices for it to work, because you're not going to see thousands of people with this particular GPS driving around.
I love the idea of realtime traffic updates.
But I fear the idea that Big Brother will know where we are and how fast we're moving...
Why is there so much green on the sample LA map? Must be the middle of the night or something...
umm, yeah, I'll stick with google maps, or microsoft live for my traffic. Nobody needs to know where I am, or how fast I'm driving. Supposedly our phone chats were supposed to be anonymous too, but that didn't stop the gov't now did it.
@Paradise: Fuck No !!
It should be personal choice_
I don't typically get lost_ ANd I usually look at and plan out where I'm going ahead of time - if I've never been there before_
and like JKR said - Companies do not need to know jack about my travel habits_ Not their business_
Very cool. Crowd-sourcing is definitely going to be big technology in the hear future.
However, with all this snazzy tech, surely we can do better than two or three colors to indicate speeds, ja?
@ideaman2020: BB already knows this through your EZ Pass or whatever it's called in your area. Oh, and your cell phone.
Time to wrap the car in tin foil...
@uberfu: good lord what do you have to hide that would prompt such a strong reaction? how about an option to turn it off then? would that make you feel better? or did you just want to use the word "fuck" real bad? i swear, the internet just seems to breed paranoia.
@FredicvsMaximvs: do we need more than three colors though? 0-30, 30-60, 60+?
I am actually a proud owner of a dash device, and I have met with a few of the members of the company. I am confident in them actually keeping the data anonymous. That being said, the device itself is truly a pleasure to use. The subscription is well worth it when you consider what you get, that is, if you drive around a lot. Not only do you get live traffic data, but you get web connected search results, free, OTA software updates, and, in the future, developers will be developing widgets that run on the device. Allowing you even more functionality.
Is my commenting broken, or did it just not show up right away?
@FredicvsMaximvs: No, the EZPass only reveals where you are when you pass through a toll booth. And if I wanted to be paranoid about it, I could slip it into the foil bag they ship them in when I want to keep BB from reading it.
And my cell phone only shows where I am when I call 911 or turn on a GPS app [otherwise I have the GPS turned off].
The concept is nothing new, but the implementation might be new. This is basically what was tested by Project ADVANCE about 10 years ago. From the project document:
"The ADVANCE Project's primary role in advancing Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technology was the operational test of the use of probe vehicles for real-time traffic information on an arterial and expressway network. It included the development and implementation of techniques to fuse data from such diverse sources as probe vehicles, fixed detectors and anecdotal reports to provide dynamic route guidance information to drivers."
Read the whole report here:
[www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov]
In those days, in-car navigation was in its infancy. The best part? When the computer crashed, which it did often, you had to reboot, and the only way to do that was to turn off the car's engine and turn it back on. Loads of fun!
How do they handle a place like LA where one lane could be going 80 and the lane right next to it could be 0??
My coworker here in Seattle had one of these during the beta and it worked like a charm when we were trying to visit customers in a random part of the state. Knowing the traffic on obscure roads really saved us more than a few times. Oh, and if you don't want BB tracking where you are then just use a Thomas Guide (that's what I use but that's because I'm cheap, not paranoid).
A similar service by TomTom already exists ("High Definition Traffic"). It uses data from a cellphone carrier. The cellphone carrier knows exactly which phones are where and how fast they are moving.
So it doesn't require the GPS unit to send data or a high market penetration.
@papaguru: A) Only in Netherlands and UK in 2008. They're rolling it out, painfully, carrier by carrier. And the updates still come over traffic receiver, which is radio. I think its slow. Too slow.
Dash works on two levels. A historic model, that does traffic on roads (even local ones) by 15 minute intervals. It knows the diff between weekend/weekday/rushhour traffic patterns on given roads.
Then that model is refined by the data sent back over IP in these units.
They learn.
This is the best traffic system in the world, bar none.
@Jonathan-L: Ya, the concept is not new. but the execution is. That still makes it a big deal and useful.
@karmaghost: the post says you don't. Statistics. Like Neilsen ratings.
Data stays fresh only as long as 15 minutes. Whole thing works on tiers of trust of how good the data is.
@Jonathan-L: BTW, that is a rad post. Restart the car, hilarious!
@ideaman2020: No, he won't. He could have a good "guesstimate" though. Due to the margin of error in the position that a GPS gives you, the formula for your speed can vary, so it would never hold up in court. Just like EZPass. The only way to get a ticket from EZPass is for speeding thru the toll booth. Otherwise, the system would have to be extremely well calibrated. Also, on major highways in NJ, the State Police don't have a court, so tickets issued to you are dealt with in the jurisdiction where the offense took place. If EZPass "could" say you were speeding, what jurisdiction would the ticket be dealt w/in? Tickets are such a great income source for towns that have highways running through them, the towns would be fighting tooth and nail to get the fines handled in THEIR court that it would be messy. Also, all you have to due is say, "No your Honor, I didn't speed there. I DID speed on this stretch though." The ticket would be thrown out in one jurisdiction, but you couldn't be tried again due to double jeopardy.
@Git Em SteveDave: Well, then... I welcome this tech with open arms.
[I'm so glad there are lawyers in the house...]
I ordered mine at CES. :) Last update I got was that they would be shipping on 3/27/08.
Hi everyone, this is Mark Williamson from Dash.
Let me start by addressing the privacy issues. We have gone through great lengths to make sure we DO NOT capture personally identifiable location information from our users. If you talk to the EFF about these types of issues they will start by saying the following: "Rule #1 - just don't capture the data and that makes everything else easier"... so we followed this rule. We do know that A dash device is driving on a road somewhere, but we don't know whose device it is, and honestly we do not want to know and we have built our system to NOT know.
@FThorn - have you checked out the service called "Trapster"? Did I mention that Dash has an open content platform with an API for third parties to develop against? More on how this all fits together at a later date.
derelikt - we took the LA screen shot around 3:30pm on March 7th.
@FredicvsMaximvs - We use 5 colors for our traffic solution: Green = free flow, Yellow = mild congestion, Orange = heavy congestion, Red = stop and go, white = no data for for the road. Our testers have felt this is a good level of granularity, but if we need to improve it over time we will do a software update that we send down to the device wirelessly.
@dash_mark: I'm glad to hear you are conscious of the privacy issues. It makes me feel much warmer & fuzzier to know you are following EFF recommendations.
My first gut reaction was "this sounds like cool tech". Now I feel much more confident going with that first thought...
The tech sounds cool but I would never be willing to pay an extra service fee for this unless I had to drive a few hours a day.
In LA on the 101 and 405 at least they will only need one color on the display - solid red. [That's one reason I am leaving.]
@papaguru: I was thinking the same thing, why not have the cell carrier do this just like the location triangulation in Google Maps on the iPhone. The triangulation is not pinpoint accurate but it seems to me to aggregate speeds on roadways it does not have to be.
Make it work with my phone and it is a defining purchase feature. Make me have to pay for another service and gadget and I will have to pass.
I was a beta tester for the Dash PND. While I loved the functionality of the device, I think Dash would've made a greater impact on the market by licensing their technology to larger PND manufacturers like Garmin or Magellan. Dash, being a newcomer to the market, is in no place for the price war that's currently being waged by PND manufacturers. From the upfront cost to the monthly service fee, I feel like they've already priced themselves out of the market. And since their technology hinges on units in use, pricing themselves out of the market will spell an ultimate failure for the Dash service.
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