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Hardware-Based Commute-Map Gadget
coreymetrics writes "Anyone have one of these things? While it's no substitute for an improved mass-transit solution in the Puget Sound area, TrafficGauge's new gadget sure looks like it beats any PDA or cell phone auto traffic map I've used. It uses the same data that powers the Washington State DOT's indispensable website. Now why can't auto makers put this kind of thing in a dash instead of mostly worthless GPS navigation and DVD units?"
That was fast... IIS is complaining of too many users.
Cache
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
may have to go with Google's cached version of the page.
Since the product site is hosed check out this article from KOMO News in Seattle. Article even has a video of the story they did on the device.
Not quite a mirror, but better than nothing.
Indeed, you could use WSDOT's own WebFlow application, although it hasn't been updated in a long time. Sadly, they have a location already set up for new maps that's going unused.
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
Tele-Aid, a service provided by Mercedes-Benz that exhibits characteristics similar to GM's OnStar, transmits real-time data pertinent to approximately 65 metropolitan areas within the continental United States. As mentioned previously, radio stations are also capable of broadcasting the information.
Do you like German cars?
Is now soon enough? All you need is a modem.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I have one of these units thanks to an inside deal. I regularly use it to decide my route to work, and it has definitely saved me from sitting in traffic on many occasions.
One thing to keep in mind is that Seattle is well suited for this device because of geography - there are no alternate routes. There are only the two east-west routes shown on the unit across Lake Washington. The north-south options aren't much better. You can't just swing over a couple of blocks to avoid a problem, so knowing that one of major routes is bad because of a wreck can make a huge difference.
Traffic reports on the radio can help, but they always come on 30 seconds after you pass the decision point for which route to take. This solves that problem by keeping the last report handy for you at any time.
The unit isn't perfect -
(1) has a fixed configuration so it wouldn't be able to accomodate any new routes, but that isn't really likely to happen around here anyways. More lanes maybe, but no new routes.
(2) It relies on the DOT data, which is occasionally of questionable accuracy.
On the plus side -
(1) it runs on the pager network so coverage is not a problem, neither are limits on data transfer or message counts over a cell network.
(2) the price is reasonable enough that is easy to recover the monthly fee in time and frustration saved.
Overall - don't even think of trying to take mine away!
Just tune into traffic info radio or pick up your cell phone and call one of the many free traffic info services. Or, have the information sent to your cell phone. But most people realize pretty quickly that that kind of knowledge is pretty useless: even if 101 or 405 are stop-and-go, taking alternate routes probably still takes longer than just living with it.
The only thing you can do is to stay a little longer at the office until traffic has died down. And to see when that has happened, you don't need a wireless gadget, you just point your desktop web browser at a traffic site.
For those with T-Mobile Sidekicks, you can access the same traffic map in sidekick-friendly format (optimized for grayscale):
http://www.up.org/cgi-bin/traffic.cgi
I wouldn't say that GPS units are worthless -- I just drove a system equipped with one a couple of weeks back and it was basically a wet dream.
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The input system was kinda clumsy, maneuvering a cursor around an alphabet to choose letters and numbers, but besides that I was in love with it. My parents were visiting San Francisco, and I live 30 min away in Belmont, so I had to take them around town and I am not too familiar with the city yet -- this thing made it a breeze.
Basically it is Mapquest in your car. You input a destination and it tells you how to get there in the quickest way possible, then shows you on the map wherever you are at any point in the trip.
When a turn is coming up, a pleasant female voice lets you know and then tones tell you exactly when to turn. If you get too far off the route that it planned for you earlier, it will plan a new route for you.
This thing could have saved me sooooo much time in my life and it was really helpful. When I didn't need the voice I just turned it down and could check the display every now and then to prove that I was on the right course.
If I had 2 grand to drop on it I would buy one tomorrow. If you're at all interested in GPS units for cars you can check it out at Hertz for a few more dollars a day.
A cheaper solution is to hook up a handheld unit to a laptop. I know somebody who did that and got great results, a lot cheaper than 2 gs.
More info on the web: http://www.autonav2000.com/Products/750NavPlus.ht
my 2 cents worth
Back when we had Ricochet (sigh) in the Seattle area. I could have my laptop on the passenger seat showing the WSDOT traffic maps, and get real-time updates as I went up the freeway. Since the average rush-hour speed of I-405 out of Bellevue was about 5 MPH, it wasn't much of a traffic hazard. Ricochet had enough bandwidth for this much data, and even worked up to 45-50 MPH (like I ever hit *that* during commute time...)
I have Tele-Aid in my G500, and it is crap. This is part of the MB Command 2.0 system that is shipping in 2002/2003 C and G class. The S class has a slightly different system.
The Info-Services part of teleaid is what most people think sounds cool.
Here is how it works so that you can judge for yourself.
1. You pay MBUSA $225 a year.
2. You login to your custom website and configure the info-services you would like. I have NHL scores, Bay Area weather, four stock quotes, and national news headlines. You get about five choices and then the website says that is all the data you can store. (I could get traffic for my commute, but I don't).
3. You press the "SVC" button on your "Command" unit (The radio head with 4.5" lcd screen).
4. You WAIT 1 or 2 minutes.
5. The unit eventually beeps, and you are then warned that reading info service underway is dangerious so you do a couple of knob turns and button presses and get to get to the data.
6. You now have about 1K of text to scroll through. Most national news stories are about 300 bytes long. Weather and Hockey are around 50 bytes each.
7. You have now learned nothing that isn't already on the radio.
The last part is the best part!!!
8. You are charged $0.40 cents a minute for the time it took for the Command system to call and get that 1K of data over a built-in cell phone and what must be a 300bps modem!!! Each call typically costs $0.80 and often calls fail without giving you any data, but they are $0.40 per minute so you get charged anyway.
It is just worthless and I won't pay for another year of it.
There's a great service for the Chicago area at:
http://www.gcmtravel.org/
Very handy for a metro area with as many expressways as the Milwaukee-Chicago-Gary area.
When your life is no longer your own...
> but as far as a retail product, the A8 doesn't break any ground, body wise
Aluminum unibody doesn't break new ground? Only for Audi, perhaps. You don't seem to understand the HUGE difference between any-material-on-steel-frame versus bulding the whole structure, frame and crumple zones and all, from the same material. The vehicles you mentioned were about as all-aluminum as the Vette is all-fiberglass. In fact, they all share a very similar design, except for the material of the panels they bolt on the outside. The whole trick with the Audi is bonding all the extruded aluminum parts together into a single body, since it can't be welded easily like steel. And yes, Jaguar started selling a vehicle of similar construction recently, but Audi has been doing so for ten years.
> the Porsche 550 spyder had an all-aluminum engine with dual overhead cams
Well, Daimler-Benz made an all-aluminum V12 with fuel injection and 1400hp output as far back as the '30s. They used to mount them in these strange looking three-wheeled single seater vehicles with tons of machine guns and cannons up front. Aluminum engines aren't anything new really.
Supposedly the Audi navigation systems were going to support this as well...as early as 1999 or 2000 in the US, but to my knowledge they're still not doing it; I have no idea about the euro units.
They are pretty much standard in the higher Audi models (A6 and A8) in Germany. I think they use extra information from radio programs, but I might be wrong. If there is a traffic jam somewhere, this is shown on the map the GPS unit displays, at least if it is on the highway. You can advise the unit to automatically calculate an alternative route. Most of the time, manual intervention is required, though, to completely avoid the traffic jam.