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New GPS Navigator Relies On 'Wisdom of the Crowds'
Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times is running an article on Dash Express, a new navigation system for automobiles that not only receives GPS location data, but broadcasts information about its travels. Information is passed back to Dash over a cellular data network, where it is shared with other users to let them know if there are slowdowns or traffic jams on the road ahead. The real benefit of the system isn't apparent until enough units are collecting data in a given area - so Dash distributed over 2,000 prototype units to test drivers in 25 large cities."
Come on, this isn't the "Wisdom of Crowds". This is just collecting and organising a lot of information from asked from different people. We should keep the "Wisdom of Crowds" tag for times when knowledge or decisions spontaneously emerge, otherwise it'll become another meaningless buzzword.
Maybe a wisdom-of-crowds GPS system would help you follow all the traffic if you get lost, under the assumption that everybody else probably knows where they're going.
They won't NEED speed traps anymore. Now that you have volunteered to give your position and speed information via GPS to the authorities by broadcasting it all the time, "your ticket is in the mail" from *ANYWHERE*.
No thanks. There is enough monitoring of citizens' activities and controlling what we are "allowed" to do, already.