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Google Maps Lets You Record Your Parking Location, Time Left At the Meter (techcrunch.com)
Google Maps has received a neat feature that will help users remember where they parked. "This appears as a new menu option when you tap the blue dot, and will place a 'P' icon on the map so you can find your way back to your spot," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Google had already introduced its own proactive parking saving feature via Google Now, but it had worked by tapping into your phone's sensors and making a determination that you had most likely parked at a given spot. Sometimes, you might see this information appear when it was unwarranted, however -- like if you got off a bus or exited a taxi, Google says. The new feature in Google Maps requires a manual entry, but this is actually a bit of an advantage over the guessing done by Google Now, because it allows you to input more information about your spot. Like Apple Maps, you can add notes about where you parked -- something that's helpful for jotting down cross streets or which floor of a garage you're on, for example. But Google Maps also supports adding multiple photos of your parking location -- a common way people often note the parking space number in the garage, and then, via a separate shot, the floor, row, aisle and/or color code for the garage level itself. In addition, Google's parking location saver will let you enter in how much time you have left at the spot. This is handy if you're in a temporary parking area (e.g. "two hour parking"), or at metered space. The time left is displayed on the map, and when it's due to expire, Google Maps will alert you via push notification.
OSMAnd has had this feature for ages, and the maps don't eat into your data allowance...
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For instance, I found a lot in Toronto where the parking meter took your credit card and would allow you to authorize additional parking time by SMS. As the time got close, the meter at the lot would send you an SMS warning. The correct reply would automatically charge you for another increment of parking time. I imaging there's a web interface for it by now.
Mind you, that was a private lot. They just have to deal with a lot of hassle if you overstay, while the government is more interested in you running out the meter so they can ticket you and make more money on the fine (that's why it's generally illegal to feed someone else's parking meter).
In Silicon Valley season one this was the app pitched by the guy Richard bout a Margarita Mixer from. Hilarious to see it become real.
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
And I can just look at my watch when I set the meter, because I think for myself like that.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
When the apocalypse comes, iDiots without working cell phones won't be able to find their dicks in the daylight - forget about finding it in the dark.
Thanks Obama
Not that big of a help at Pay and display meditated spots.
For instance, I found a lot in Toronto where the parking meter took your credit card and would allow you to authorize additional parking time by SMS. As the time got close, the meter at the lot would send you an SMS warning.
That is good for paid lots, but it would defeat the purpose of parking meters. The purpose isn't go generate revenue, but to generate turnover. That's why they have short timers in the first place.
Why is this news? Slow news day?
Separately, if a new startup had come up with this they would be worth $5 billion at current valuations!
captcha: disrupt
... rest assured that it will be discontinued in a few months. Fucking Google has the attention span of a gnat.
Tim Berners-Lee and the brightest of academia and military intelligence and al Gore who were there when they designed the internet, heave a collective sigh of relief and thought, Finally! The killer app that the internet was invented for! Not Netflix or hulu or WhatsApp or some silly nonsense! SMART METERED PARKING!!"
For the longest time Google Maps showed my house as being in the Atlantic Ocean. I am not sure I trust them quite so much to remember where I parked if I don't check it before walking off.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Most meters in my downtown have a 2 hour maximum, some even as low as 30 minutes, and they always forbid parking during rush hours (your time will end at exactly 4pm on weekdays) on the main thoroughfares. They also have a parking app for phones and accept credit cards at the pay station (one per block) so it's easy to add more time if you need it, even remotely from the app, up to your 2 hour max. I'm sure they make up the "lost" revenue from extensions from people who leave their spots before the time is up. Since the meters are paid from a central location, there's no jumping on someone's extra time or feeding meters.
We're Google, and we're here to help.
A feature available on a $50 GPS unit from 5 years ago...weeeee
Bonus - With no added data sent to GooglePrime.
Where's my car?
Have gnu, will travel.
Why does it need you to remember to manually mark your spot? It seems this can easily be done with some logic (no AI needed), especially when you combine it with the fact that google should know all the parking spots if not from maps then from noting where cars stop. The accelerometer should be able to provide the phone with an indication of when you are getting out of your car. Also, it can save your GPS track point by point every 10 seconds with a timestamp (locally so no privacy issue) so that in the worst case you can retrace your path back to the car. It should probably periodically delete your paths for privacy reasons if you do choose.
Wait who still uses dumb meters? I have another app, not Google that doesn't tell me time left but rather auto bills the meter in a specific zone and stops when I return. Even in my previous more backwards city I would simply send an SMS to start billing and another to stop.
> Google Maps Lets You Record Your Parking Location, Time Left At the Meter
Mountain View, CA. Although ignored by the general populace, it's a public secret that Google knows everything about your life, including where you parked your car. In a surprising move, Google has decided to let users view their own data. "In general, we have a policy that all your data belong to us", stated Eric Schmid, Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Inc. and after remaining silent at the microphone, finishing his sentence with "and you don't get to see it". He smirks and then explains: "however, in this case it's such a useful feature. I just don't know where I leave any of my cars. They aren't that expensive but our data scientists told me that my cars already occupy 33.85% of all parking spaces in the Greater Los Angeles Area." He adds: "So after using that feature for a couple of years, I suddenly thought, perhaps this is useful to other people. I figured it pretty much offsets all the evil that we've been doing for the last couple of years."
Members of the press start shouting questions and Mr. Schmidt points to one of them. "Andy Ihnathko of the Chicago Sun Times -- mr. Schmidt, when will this project be abandoned?"
Google's chairman narrows his eyes and replies: "How would you like my robot to color your sideburns red with the blood from your assh---" at which point the Alphabet head of PR hastily switches off Mr. Schmidt's microphone and declares the press conference finished.
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And I just don't give a damn where a left the car.
That's the problem for the next customer of the station-less car-sharing scheme.
(And this next customer just uses the map in their app to find the nearest available parked shared car).
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i.e.: systems where you take a car wherever you find it, and leave it wherever you want within the boundary of the zone where the scheme is in place.
The car sharing company has an extremely wide-area parking pass that allows the car to be left parked nearly everywhere.
No specific stations where you need to return the car - like it's the case with classical car-sharing schemes.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Parking meters where I live will give out a dual ticket. Part of it for under the windshield, put for you to take with you. You ill also have 15 minutes of free parking.
There is also an app you could use and you can also send an SMS when you park and another one when you get back and they will charge your operator. (That is how I pay my bus as well)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...you probably shouldn't be driving.
I'm not even joking. There are a lot of talents out there and some people just aren't cut out for driving.
... except for the fact that the only place I've ever forgotten where I've parked is the gigantic underground garage at the Prudential Center in Boston. I tend to doubt that the gps signal down there will be strong enough to help.
Great news, but I suspect we won't have long to enjoy it. Every time a Google product reaches a rich level of functionality, it's scrapped and replaced with a useless, feature robbed, confusing new beta with a horrendous UI.
Short of a distance measuring tool and a few other odds and ends, Maps is finally approaching the functionality it had 3 years ago, and I bet all kinds of "usability experts" are just itching to scrap it.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I have a parking app with a clever twist. You tell it what handsfree bluetooth phone you have in your car. When it sees that device turn off, it assumes you just parked somewhere and records your parking spot automagically.