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Cellphones to Monitor Highway Traffic
Roland Piquepaille writes "On February 8, 2008, about 100 UC Berkeley students will participate in the Mobile Century experiment, using GPS mobile phones as traffic sensors. During the whole day, these students carrying the GPS-equipped Nokia N95 will drive along a 10-mile stretch of I-880 between Hayward and Fremont, California. 'The phones will store the vehicles' speed and position information every 3 seconds. These measurements will be sent wirelessly to a server for real-time processing.' As more and more cellphones are GPS-equipped, the traffic engineering community, which currently monitors traffic using mostly fixed sensors such as cameras and loop detectors, is tempted to use our phones to get real-time information about traffic."
Perhaps in the future systems like this will be linked into your phone to deliver real-time advertisements for nearby stores, restaurants, etc. Of course, using your cell phone while driving will still be illegal...
*** INCOMING TEXT MESSAGE *** Get 2-for-1 pizzas at Papa John's!!!! Turn right ahead.
*** INCOMING TEXT MESSAGE *** Buy lingerie for that special someone at Victoria's Secret!!! Turn left ahead.
*** INCOMING TEXT MESSAGE *** Buy [driver chucks cell phone out window]
*** INCOMING TEXT MESSAGE *** You've violated local littering ordinances. Your account is now being billed the appropriate fine. Have a nice day!
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