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I think you are referring to the Dash GPS. I haven't used one myself, but it at least looks interesting.

I of course wish them good luck. One of the last commercial attempts to do this, Dash Express, recently revealed it did no go as well as originally planned.

People have been talking about this for years. The one company that looks promising is Dash. Their GPS device has a GPRS modem to upload data back to their server. The data is then filtered and sent down to all the users. Obviously this would be useful only if there was a certain sweet spot of number of dash users. Obviously this would be far more pervasive if done using cell phones.

Someone else posted this link http://www.dash.net/. This looks like it uses a wide area network to connect to a centeralized server that the in car systems then can query about traffic pattern. I haven't looked at their site enough to figure out how real time it is and all the details.
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Oh, they are working on this http://www.dash.net/

The Dash Express is supposed to use other devices in the network as a kind of sensor network. It sounds like it would be far more reliable for traffic prediction than TomTom or Garmin. Problem with traffic alerts is that they are only useful when there is an actual incident. Even in that case it depends very much on the cops actually putting on the sensors and reporting back accurate information. This certainly does not work when you just have a plain ol traffic jam.

Looking through the website the express looks like more than vapor-ware. Who knows if it really works.

With real-time traffic updates, navigation, and information feeds ...

http://www.dash.net/

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