Join the Crowdsourcing Revolution and Add Your Country to the Map
PALO ALTO, Calif.----Waze, Inc., the first free provider of
driver-generated maps and real-time road information, today announced
the availability of its platform for community crowdsourcing of maps,
worldwide. Already, drivers have organically formed their own groups
and have started using waze to build local maps in over 20 countries
around the globe, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany,
Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and
Trinidad Tobago. Due to driver demand, waze can now be used to generate
real-time maps anywhere in the world, quickly and accurately, by simply
driving around with waze’s free mobile app installed on your phone.
Through a community-based approach, waze harnesses driver-generated
data in order to build navigable road maps. The waze application runs
on users' smartphones,
while automatically and anonymously sending back GPS points as they
drive. This data is then used to build and continuously update the road
grid itself, road changes, and more. All of this information is
collected passively, but drivers can also take a more active role, by
joining the map editing arm of the community online at world.waze.com.
Demand from the international community spurred waze to open its
platform worldwide, after its successful launch in Israel and the US.
With waze’s technology, users can now build maps from scratch -
literally paving the roads they drive on the map. Patented technology
enables the map building process to happen very quickly, for example,
in Singapore the highway grid was mapped in just a few days by a
handful of active users. Once the map is created, the mobile app
automatically provides free turn-by-turn navigation, as well as
real-time traffic and community-generated road reports to all wazer’s
in the region.
“Even without specific country support, we were amazed to see wazers on
our live map in clusters all over the world self organizing,” said Noam
Bardin, CEO of waze. “We are committed to fostering this community of
users and supporting them with the new infrastructure launched today. I
would like to thank these motivated wazers from all over the world for
helping us bring better maps, free navigation and an improved daily
commute to their regions.”
Waze launched its first mobile application in Israel, where it has been
downloaded by more than 200,000 commuters. It is the fastest-growing
navigation application in that market with unprecedented real-time
traffic information and a navigable map built entirely from scratch by
the community’s users. Waze launched in the USA over the summer and is
currently available nationwide.
“Traditional map making technologies are labor intensive thus
expensive,” said Mark Fitzgerald of Strategy Analytics. “Real-time maps
and crowdsourced data can provide both the functionality and the
free-to-consumer cost structure to serve as the map for the mobile
generation, just as Wikipedia serves as the Encyclopedia for the
Internet generation."
Waze is available for Android, iPhone, Symbian & Windows Mobile
users and is actively seeking partnerships with commercial map owners
worldwide that want to join their crowdsourced mapping initiative.
About waze
Waze is a free mobile navigation application that allows drivers to
build and use live maps, real-time traffic updates and turn-by-turn
navigation to improve their daily commute. Waze also has a social
element that gives drivers the ability to actively update one other on
traffic, police traps, construction, speed cams and more - and because
it’s 100% user-generated, the more people who use waze, the better (and
more fun) it gets!
To learn more about waze online, visit www.waze.com or @waze on Twitter.
Mobile Technology Feature - Top 10 Business Apps for Android - Android has become one of the most popular mobile operating systems
in the world due to advanced software, competitive manufacturers, and an
app market that is filled with exciting and useful applications. Read
on for this fine Top 10 List compiled by tech writer, Blake Sanders
The Really Big List of Mapping, Geo location Mobile developer resources, APIs and Tools - The Mobile Ecosystem... no question that mobile is huge and
the opportunity for developers, in particular, geo developers! There's
loads of developer resources on the web so to help the developer,
here's a listing of just some of the fine dev resources, blogs,
toolsets and more to consider when developing or porting your app to a
smartphone or Tablet.
ArcGIS.com Mashup Tutorial with Flickr and Foursquare data-
Here's a simple "how to" tutorial on working with the free ArcGIS.com
to easily import KML or RSS data from Flickr and foursquare into ArcGIS
to create your own custom map mashup. ArcGIS.com has some recent
updates including support for KML, be sure to check it out!
Most Users of Free Photo Apps Say Adding Cool Effects is Most Useful - Adding cool effects
to photos was rated as the most useful thing by more than halfof
consumers surveyed using free online photography services, according to
CatchFree a free
online service that helps people find the best free mobile and web applications
to perform useful tasks.
Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet Up Close - No Replacement for the iPad But Pretty Darned Sweet - As could be
expected, speculation and blogging is rampant with many stories and
pseudo "reviews" coming out, many of them touting the next "iPad
killer".
Mobile Developer Resource - MapQuest & The Mobile Worker - Facility management companies, surveyors, multi-level marketing,
insurance claims, pipeline companies, water utilities; all have field
workers who would benefit from mobile applications. Not only checking in
to work sites, but keeping a record of the work done
Flickr GPS Photo Tag Tip - Here's a tip for Flickr users who want to share their GPS information
with their photos. note, in order to do this you'll need to be
capturing photos using a GPS-enabled or GPS-aware camera (see you're
smartphone hardware settings to ensure that GPS or location sharing is
turned "ON)".
Mobile data usage in Canada to triple between 2010 and 2012 - Some interesting, yet not terribly surprising, numbers on mobile
usage coming out of Canada. According to a report summarized on
Techvibes, mobile usage is soaring, in particular, the smartphone
segment
Social Location Directory
Do you have a location-aware application, social location service or other location-sensitive service that you'd like to share with us? Please browse this growing directory of Social location Services and feel free to leave a link to your favorite service! See the Directory HERE
Suggested Reading
The Underground Guide To The iPhone:
The iPhone is – if I may say so – one of the greatest mobile
revolutions of the past decade. More and more, mobile phones seem to
materialize out of our wildest dreams. Because of the tight integration
of third-party applications, you can do nearly everything with your
device — be it gaming, working, fooling around, and of course phoning.
Good Mobile Messaging: Executives and professional field forces spend an increasing amount of time on the road tending to business.
Mobile Apps - Native or Web?:
You probably have a plan to build a mobile app, but you've struggled
with the basic question - Should I build it using open web standards
such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, or should I build it as a native app
for the devices I want to target?
iBike Coach App- a new “Always On” feature always gathers data
Nike+ GPS App- for sports tracking, recording and sharing
Featured Events
Content & Apps for Automotive Europe 2012 (18-19 April, Germany)
will give you key insights on how in-vehicle connectivity is being
revolutionised as OEMs integrate dynamic content to stay relevant
throughout the vehicle life cycle.
Location Intelligence for Enterprise - Europe 2012, January 16-17, London Hear from Google, Jones Lang LaSalle, Tesco, Willis, Oracle,
ESRI, Microsoft, PBBI and many more as they debate the best strategies
for business models and integration.
Consumer Telematics Show 2012 (Jan 9, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, USA) is the most prestigious and
dynamic consumer telematics focused meeting for the automotive industry.
Held in Las Vegas on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES),
this year's senior-level speakers will include General Motors, Audi,
Toyota, Panasonic, Continental, Hughes Telematics, Gartner, KIA,
Mercedes-Benz and many more
Esri Dev Summit - The
Esri Developer Summit (DevSummit) brings together developers and GIS
professionals from all over the globe. March 26-29, 2012, Palm Springs,
CA
