This technology is a big science experiment. The only real working system that is being implemented today that provides real urban travel times is being rolled out by Sensys Networks. Its infrastructure based and no cell phones are required. Its real travel times..not estimates.

SampadaLolzordz

12h??? if you place a car battery on it maybe. I had an N95 and the battery was holding up to 2 days, without very much talking and blue tooth use. Imagine for how long a battery will last on a GPS application.

[www.i-guide.ro]

iguide

so... what about battery life? 12h?

KoRnholio8

@rbf2000: well yea you can buy a cell then plus a gps unit, but the point is having a cell that has already GPS

giodelgado

All I've ever heard about the N95's navi is that it sucks. It takes too much time to connect to satellites and it is supposed to be very slow on giving directions causing often street missing. A friend got the N95 cause of the GPS and then got a Garmin GPS cause the N95's GPS sucks.

ProSeven

Stated that it will be anonymous or not, I do not want my whereabouts continually cataloged in any database. Seems like something the government would just love to have access to. My IMEA/telephone number is available to this technology.

Yeah, sounds paranoid, but I'm reminded of the Hertz GPS equipped vehicles where Hertz mailed their own imposed fines to past renters, after tracking how fast they were driving.

nicklar

Telenav already does this on most phones.

foxmajik

I was one of the drivers in the experiment yesterday. There ended up being a six car pile-up in a right line on 880 that they were able to pinpoint exactly from our driving patterns. Pretty cool stuff, and the data they collected was apparently just as they'd hoped.

bbk5

does anybody really believe this is "anonymous". There have been other "anonymous" systems that haven't been honest. AT&T rings a bell. Look, if I kill somebody, and I tell the police I was somewhere else, this could really hurt my story. But seriously, I already use google maps, and here in California, we already have state funded traffic monitoring systems. Besides think of all the extra network traffic this would create. Our cell phone quality is already below acceptable standards 25% of the time.

jkr

Isn't this what the GPS unit Dash does?

dash.net

rbf2000

That sounds pretty cool, but how would this data be any more accurate than Google? Also: It doesn't change the fact that there is only one Bay Bridge and one Golden Gate Bridge. I feel bad for commuters (BART or car)...that crap makes me feel lucky I work from home.

johnnyabnormal