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New Navigation App 'Live Roads' Promises 1.5m-Accuracy With Standard Cellphone Hardware (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-and-improved dept.

Jonathan M. Gitlin from Ars Technica reviews a new navigation app called Live Roads, which promises 1.5m-accuracy via your current smartphone without the need of any extra hardware. In a nutshell, the app provides more accurate mapping/navigation than what's currently available via Google Maps or Apple Maps, but it's still not quite as accurate as a true "HD map." HD maps are accurate to within a centimeter or two and are usually made by a combination of traditional surveying and lidar scanning. Here's an excerpt from the report: A few weeks after talking with the company, I was delivered a Samsung S7 loaded with Live Roads. I'll be honest: I'm not that familiar with Android, and this isn't really a review of the app. I used it enough to check that it does what it claims, but I didn't use it as my sole method of navigation. However, this brief bit of user-testing did let me check out the claims in that email. I don't think I'd equate the app with the HD maps that autonomous vehicles will need. For one thing it's readable by a human being; for another it's not quite that accurate. But the spatial resolution was indeed better than it should be on a consumer phone, and Live Roads was able to locate me down to a specific lane on a multi-lane road. Various navigation apps give you lane-specific instructions -- for instance, telling you to stay in the middle two lanes if you're approaching a complicated intersection. Where Live Roads differs is that it can also tell which lane you're actually in. Whether this is enough of a feature to build a business model around is an open question; I'm quite happy using Google Maps on iOS, with occasional forays into Waze (running in the background to warn of speed traps) and Apple Maps (if I'm driving something with CarPlay and the infotainment's built-in navigation sucks).

But it left me wondering: how does it work? Paul Konieczny, CEO of Live Roads, gave me an explanation -- up to a point. "Primarily it is based around sensor fusion and certain probabilistic models -- we call it the Black Box," he said. "The current release of the app that is available in the Play Store has an earlier revision of our Black Box. This initial version is missing some of the functionality of the full-fledged system and thus has a spatial resolution of ~2.5m. This compares favorably to standard GPS that has a resolution of 4.0 m+." By summer, Konieczny hopes that the system will be fully operational and that accuracy will be down to under 1.5m. Assuming a large enough user base, that should let it offer lane-specific traffic data, "as well as introducing an entire ecosystem of 3D objects that users will be able to interact with," he told me.

80 comments

  1. Another yutz who doesn't know what accuracy means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think he meant precision.

  2. Smells like Vapor-ware! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The good stuff is coming really soon...

    1. Re:Smells like Vapor-ware! by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Only works in prison cells because it's a cell phone and not a mobile phone.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  3. Buzzword soup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Paul Konieczny, CEO of Live Roads, gave me an explanation Sensor fusion blah blah probabilistic models blah blah black box.

    I'm disappointed that it didn't involve any AI Assistants or Cloud Services.

    1. Re:Buzzword soup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would require a paradigm shift to make sure that by the end of the day all parameters are met, we don't scope creep and make it disruptive to the users. As we speak I am sure they are coming up with a best practices program in which the ecosystem ensures that there is no further low hanging fruit, but they would take that discussion offline. They really do need to stick to their core competency to move the needle in this field, and maintain their customer-centric pose. That is the sweet spot the enterprise must satisfy, and not just be a one-off, waiting until we revisit it in the next-generation.

      Smartly standing by.

  4. Quality Journalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some quality journalism from Ars Technica:

    I'll be honest: I'm not that familiar with Android, and this isn't really a review of the app. I used it enough to check that it does what it claims, but I didn't use it as my sole method of navigation. However, this brief bit of user-testing...

    So he can't use Android and he couldn't be bothered actually testing the app before writing the article?

  5. Hopefully Virtual 3D Objects by careysub · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... an entire ecosystem of 3D objects that users will be able to interact with ...

    I already have an entire ecosystem of 3D objects I am trying not to interact with while I am driving.

    --
    Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
  6. Autopilot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "as well as introducing an entire ecosystem of 3D objects that users will be able to interact with,"

    Tesla's already come with that.

  7. Remember Garmin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Garmin was using this exact 'technology' 18 years ago.

    And hence forth has Apple and Google.

    What a fucking shit for brains submission.

      What happened to Slashdot.

    1. Re: Remember Garmin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Garmin was using this exact 'technology' 18 years ago.

      And hence forth has Apple and Google.

      What a fucking shit for brains submission.

          What happened to Slashdot.

      Give BeauHD a break. He clearly said the article writer has never used the platform he is pumping. So BeauHDs hands are clean as fuck.

    2. Re:Remember Garmin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The difference is that a Garmin has 12 receivers and a standard cell phone has 3. 3 receivers is the minimum that you need to find your position but it is only accurate to about 150 feet. What I believe this software package is doing is storing additional 3 GPS satellites frequencies in memory and switching between the two sets of 3 frequencies as fast as it can to get to 1.5 meters or around 5 to 7 feet.

      With 12 receivers, you only need 12 because of the 24 GPS satellites, 12 of them are going to be on the other side of the earth, you can get the 3 cm resolution you need/want. I've been using my bicycle Garmin for more than 10 years when a standard smart phone would tell you what road you were on, the Garmin would tell me what side of the road I was on. I can also use it for driving and would easily tell me what lane I was in, even 10 years ago.

      People that are not used to 12 receiver GPS's are amazed of the resolution that a 3 receiver GPS will give when a software trick is used to make 3 receivers 6.

    3. Re:Remember Garmin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, handheld garmin GPSs were not accurate to 1.5 meters 18 years ago. They still aren't when moving in an urban canyon where reflection causes error. And for the guy talking about receiver channels. No, you're wrong to. LTE modems generally have 12-15 channels, including WAAS. 1 meter static with a decent view of the sky. This is talking about fusing acceleration and compass data from the phone , probably with some other happy crap like doppler prediction and perhaps predicting reflections of known buildings, to get high accuracy without a clear view of the sky.

    4. Re:Remember Garmin? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Most good mobile phones today support not only GPS but also GLONASS and Galileo (which is still not fully operational, but when you get a fix on one of them, it increases the precision).
      I typically get a 3-4 meter resolution if the weather is good, which is better than the Garmin device I used to have in the car.

  8. They call it "black box" by imidan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You can get a better GPS fix by having a base station at a surveyed point, but this isn't what they're doing, because it would be expensive. There are also corrections you can do based upon atmospheric conditions, but they say that wasn't good enough. They pretty obviously don't want to say how they're doing it, which makes sense for trying to corner the market. But I wonder how novel their methods are, and if they can really stay ahead for long.

    They say it's by "sensor fusion" and probabilistic models. The sensors are presumably the accelerometer and maybe the barometer in a cell phone. They could have an idea of the nominal error of a sensor based upon the model of phone. The probabilistic models, I can only guess, come from having many users running the app at once so they can try to reduce the error using many measurements.

    Once they narrow the precision of the fix to the size of a lane of traffic, they could start identifying the lane by the behavior of clients in that lane -- if everyone turns off the freeway at this point in this lane, it's probably an exit lane, that sort of thing. And those rules could become much more complex. Like, use a machine learning process and train it on a bunch of well-defined traffic situations.

    But, two questions: first, can they compete with companies like Garmin and Google who have tons of money and clients, plus smart people who could try to reverse-engineer these improvements and roll them out basically for free? It could easily be worth it to crush competition. And, if the success of the probabilistic model is based upon having many clients, do they get this level of improvement everywhere, or only in higher-traffic areas like cities?

    1. Re:They call it "black box" by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But, two questions: first, can they compete with companies like Garmin and Google who have tons of money and clients, plus smart people who could try to reverse-engineer these improvements and roll them out basically for free?

      Perhaps their probabilistic model suggests that one of the Big Dogs will buy them out at a ridiculous Silicon Valley rate and all the top folks will be flush with lots of cash-ola.

      Why? Because by itself, there's really no way to adequately monetize this app, the amount of money they can make selling it through the app stores or directly to the phone companies just isn't all that much comparatively speaking.

      No, they want Google to buy them.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:They call it "black box" by imidan · · Score: 1

      Perhaps their probabilistic model suggests that one of the Big Dogs will buy them out... they want Google to buy them.

      Yeah, I think you're right. It seems like the best case for them is that they are doing something non-trivial enough that Google can't replicate it immediately and just buys them instead.

    3. Re:They call it "black box" by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      You can get a better GPS fix by having a base station at a surveyed point, but this isn't what they're doing, because it would be expensive.

      Although that *is* how the original civilian GPS companies managed to get around the military-mandated fuzzing of gps data originally being provided to said companies...

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:They call it "black box" by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Driving a car, to a location, 1.5m accuracy who cares. What I want to know is the basic route and where to park when I get there, what the location looks like, what the entry to the carpark looks like and the best route to a carpark, close to the final destination.

      High resolution, sure if it is a big building and I want a walking route to the required location. Does that 1.5m accuracy including vertical accuracy because sometimes buildings come in storeys.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:They call it "black box" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The point is (if they actually had the high accuracy) that you can now develop per-lane traffic and route prediction, including carpool lanes, express lanes, etc.

    6. Re:They call it "black box" by jaa101 · · Score: 1

      reverse-engineer these improvements and roll them out basically for free

      Have you heard of patents?

    7. Re:They call it "black box" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1.5m doesn't seem good enough for that. While the lane is wider, center of car to next lane isn't.

      Still close, won't need much improvement to get it to that point.

    8. Re:They call it "black box" by imidan · · Score: 1

      Sure, but the article says nothing about patents. The company is keeping their algorithms secret (the "black box") and without publishing their methods, they can't get a patent; they can only rely on trade secrets. Which means anyone who can reverse engineer it can implement it without penalty.

    9. Re:They call it "black box" by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      But, two questions: first, can they compete with companies like Garmin and Google who have tons of money and clients, plus smart people who could try to reverse-engineer these improvements and roll them out basically for free?

      Who cares? I have a Garmin, and Garmin has become grossly incompetent. It's a toss-up whether you'll even be able to get your GPS maps to update correctly. I'm never buying another Garmin again. Google discontinues apps at the drop of a hat (any hat) so they don't have the staying power to bring an app that complicated to fruition. They're wasting their time redesigning the image gallery app every year instead.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:They call it "black box" by jaa101 · · Score: 1

      without publishing their methods, they can't get a patent

      Patents are published after application, not before. Just because they didn't tell this reviewer the technical details doesn't mean that aren't planning to apply for patents, if they haven't already.

    11. Re:They call it "black box" by grahamsz · · Score: 1

      I think your comment about modeling the behavior is almost certainly true.

      If i just turned left, and there's only one left turn lane, then they can look back a few seconds and adjust GPS to reflect that. Similarly if you are driving down a two-lane highway and they can use the accelerometer to detect lane changes, then they can calibrate the GPS to reflect the "probably-right' lane in each case.

    12. Re:They call it "black box" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A standard cell phone only has 3 GPS receivers. Their trick is when searching for GPS satellites to lock onto the 3 strongest signals, they store a list of the next 3 strongest signals in memory. They then switch between the 3 strongest signal frequency signals and then the next 3 strongest signals as fast as the cell phone can for a perceived 6 receiver GPS increasing the resolution to about 5 to 7 feet or about 1.5 meters.

      It wouldn't be hard for any one to write a program to do that.

    13. Re:They call it "black box" by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      But, two questions: first, can they compete with companies like Garmin and Google who have tons of money and clients, plus smart people who could try to reverse-engineer these improvements and roll them out basically for free? It could easily be worth it to crush competition. And, if the success of the probabilistic model is based upon having many clients, do they get this level of improvement everywhere, or only in higher-traffic areas like cities?

      I don't think they're aiming to compete with Garmin and Google. They're aiming to sell their technology to Garmin and Google to have not just lane guidance, but lane accuracy as well. One of the annoyances I had was despite Google having lane guidance, it would only provide it when I got close. Why not tell me to change lanes after turning so I can prepare myself ahead of time and not have to go from one side of the road to another?

      Not only that, but it can reroute ahead of time - perhaps I'm in the wrong lane - it can ask me to change lanes, but also prepare a new route in case I'm unable to change lanes for whatever reason.

      Driving a car, to a location, 1.5m accuracy who cares. What I want to know is the basic route and where to park when I get there, what the location looks like, what the entry to the carpark looks like and the best route to a carpark, close to the final destination.

      If you want that, Google Maps already gives you that. Every step in the step-by-step driving instructions has a little Street View thing beside it so you can tap it and see the intersection and buildings and landmark ahead of time.

    14. Re:They call it "black box" by hanees · · Score: 1

      Are you aware of the different type of navigation system in the world? If, No. Then we are here to make you aware of the type of navigation system over the world, which we use in our daily life into our mobile or in our car navigation system. GLONASS is an alternative to GPS(Global Positioning System), which stands for(Global Navigation Satellite System) in English and in Russian. It is termed as GLONASS (Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema).

    15. Re:They call it "black box" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "Black Box" is very likely a Kalman filter. I doubt they are doing anything new to Garmin, etc.

  9. no mystery by johnjones · · Score: 1

    its simply GPS fused with other sensors and thats it...

    GPS/GLONASS since Android 7.0 (i.e., Nougat), users now have access to raw GNSS measurements – opening the door to higher-accuracy
    google maps even does this by asking you to accurately calibrate your compass

    the problem is the antenna on most smart phones is terrible compared to those fitted in cars plus the ability for a car to accurately predict that your actually in a car compared to the smartphone which cant know this for sure...

    1. Re:no mystery by blindseer · · Score: 1

      plus the ability for a car to accurately predict that your actually in a car compared to the smartphone which cant know this for sure...

      Let's see, traveling 100 kph on an express motorway, probably in a car. But we can't know this for sure, the phone could be in someone's pocket while they are holding on to the hood and screaming for the driver to stop.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    2. Re:no mystery by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Is there something similar for iOS? (it seems iOS became less accurate since v11, due probably to a new algorithm)

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  10. Black box...kind of like Theranos by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

    Call me skeptical.

    1. Re:Black box...kind of like Theranos by imidan · · Score: 1

      This is only a guess, but I bet they call it "black box" not just to be coy, but because it's a machine learning model that even they don't know exactly what it does all the time. But unlike Theranos, I can actually see a scenario where their approach would really work.

    2. Re:Black box...kind of like Theranos by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      "it's a machine learning model that even they don't know exactly what it does all the time"

      "Machine learning" is the new alchemy. It must be working but no one "knows what it does".

    3. Re:Black box...kind of like Theranos by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      There are a lot of issues with this. If you don't know why something works, it might work for completely the wrong reason. I heard about a group of researchers who tried to teach an AI to tell the different between wolves and dogs. It got very good, and they thought their AI had everything figured out. But, they late discovered that it wasn't even looking at the dog. It turned out that all the pictures they presented of wolves had snow in them. And so, instead of distinguishing wolf and not wolf, it was actually distinguishing between snow and not snow.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  11. GPS accuracy is only 10% of the battle by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 4, Insightful

    90% is keeping maps up-to-date. What good is 1.5m accuracy, if you encounter a road construction detour just constructed yesterday? Google Navigation works so well not because of its accuracy, but because they put so much time, money, and effort into updating their maps constantly. Even then, it's not hard to find examples of locations where Google Navigation is not quite up-to-date. Good luck "Live Roads"!

    1. Re: GPS accuracy is only 10% of the battle by MoHaG · · Score: 1

      Google uses the public to update their maps, via the report issue function (and previously Google map maker)

    2. Re:GPS accuracy is only 10% of the battle by houghi · · Score: 1

      Not sure if they do, but they can integrate it into existing maps. e.g. Google Maps. 1.5 meters does not tell you what road you are on, but what lane you are in. I often have been in a situation where I was, accoring to the APP I used, driving on the wrong side of a paralell road. Especially if I did not follow the directions the app was thinking I would go.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    3. Re: GPS accuracy is only 10% of the battle by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      This is true, but Google Maps also puts a lot of their own money into it. They employ at least 10,000 people in their maps division alone!

      http://www.businessinsider.com...

    4. Re:GPS accuracy is only 10% of the battle by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      1.5 meters does not tell you what road you are on, but what lane you are in

      This is theoretically true, but this requires that the maps themselves also be accurate to within 1.5 meters. From my own experience using navigation apps, mostly Google, I can tell you that they are NOT that accurate.

  12. Someone elia5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use osm free maps and it pegs right to the parking spot I'm in, and as device is in front of the car, it shows close to front center of the spot. How is this special???

  13. how is that considered good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    might be good for the US system but the European system has 1m resolution for public receiver and 1cm for military.

    1.5m has not been considered good since years.

  14. "I'm not that familiar with Android" by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is this class signaling? A disclaimer in case someone mistake you for Android trash and not the awesome Apple bro you actually are? Because I can't imagine anyone supposedly "from Ars Technica" finding themselves mystified by anything on a modern Android device. That just doesn't compute.

    --
    Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    1. Re:"I'm not that familiar with Android" by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Alternatively, they could just not be familiar with Android. Maybe they use a flip phone? A laptop is enough portable computing for a lot of people.

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      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re:"I'm not that familiar with Android" by rot16 · · Score: 1

      In that case the sentence more likely would read "not familiar with smartphones".

    3. Re:"I'm not that familiar with Android" by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Except that it's (currently) Android-only software that arrived on a S7

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      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    4. Re:"I'm not that familiar with Android" by _merlin · · Score: 1, Informative

      Well, I'm not overly familiar with iOS, so I'd add a disclaimer if I was reviewing an iOS app. I'd expect someone who's primarily an iPhone user to give a similar disclaimer when reviewing an Android app. Same for a Mac user reviewing Windows software and vice versa.

    5. Re:"I'm not that familiar with Android" by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 0

      Is this class signaling? A disclaimer in case someone mistake you for Android trash and not the awesome Apple bro you actually are? Because I can't imagine anyone supposedly "from Ars Technica" finding themselves mystified by anything on a modern Android device. That just doesn't compute.

      Had the same thought.

      "I am of course not very familiar with McDonald's, so don't consider this review of the Trump Burger a "review" ..."

    6. Re:"I'm not that familiar with Android" by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      What, because if you carry around an Android device, you're intimately familiar with every nook and cranny of iOS?

      It's completely reasonable to think that if someone doesn't use it every day, they may not be as familiar.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  15. Only 1.5m? by Khyber · · Score: 1

    My 2016 cellphone has that via differential GPS plus Inertial sensors, and is down to 1 foot accurate. I use it for mining spot location all the time.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:Only 1.5m? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My 2016 cellphone has that via differential GPS plus Inertial sensors, and is down to 1 foot accurate. I use it for mining spot location all the time.

      1 foot accurate sometimes or 1 foot accurate guaranteed?

      There is a difference between being correct 99.9% of the time and "I can trust my life with this."

    2. Re:Only 1.5m? by Khyber · · Score: 1

      I can step into the exact same snake hole in the middle of nowhere every time I have tried with my eyes almost entirely on the screen (taking eyes off the screen to navigate around obvious things like boulders, over ridges and such.)

      It's a MIL-SPEC phone so I expect at least some minimum level of build quality and functionality and have received every bit of it.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  16. Evil uses for the data by MoHaG · · Score: 2

    That data can be really useful to automatically find illegal lane changes (e.g. overtaking over barrier lines, pushing into queues over lines that indicate that you can't, turning from lanes that it is not allowed)

  17. Re:Trump can't have cell phones in prison though by blindseer · · Score: 2

    Yes, but can we be sure of his velocity?

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  18. Why? by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    There's a lot of negative things to be said about Google Maps and Waze, but I can't say I've ever had a problem with accuracy that wasn't a half a second blip that was completely irrelevant to the current navigation: e.g. Maps has problems recognising I merged into a tunnel and then blips back onto another road for a second before correction.

    Whoop-de-do.

    1. Re:Why? by coofercat · · Score: 1

      Agreed - although they all seem to suffer on certain streets in London which have tall building. They also don't work in tunnels ;-)

      As for accuracy though, I suspect it's a matter of using the GPS fix + as much else as you can. If driving, then you must be on one of the car lanes, so plot to that and then watch the accelerometer and compass for any change in direction not attributable to the road itself. Clever stuff, but not that clever.

      I can see this being pretty helpful in GPS navigation though. Right now, my car's crappy GPS says "keep right" when you come up to a left-hand exit on the motorway. Instead, it could say "you're in the leftmost lane which is fine, just stay in it" (or "...which is a filter lane, so move one lane to the right"). Can't see it being some sort of "Google maps killer" though - a nice addition, but not much more than that.

      It could be handy to figure out where hard-to-find building entrances are though. It won't have accurate maps for these because postcodes and such like aren't that accurate. However, by watching how other people go in and out of the building, you'd be able to map out where the doors are. Current GPS probably isn't quite accurate enough for that.

      So in short.. I suspect this is PR to get some extra downloads which gets some extra data points for them to work on. Give 'em your data at your own risk ;-)

    2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Google maps and Waze do not suck the battery down so fast. Honestly I'd need a car battery tied to this to be useful, I found I had to leave the charger plugged in or it drained the battery.

    3. Re:Why? by edi_guy · · Score: 1

      Came here to say the same thing. Google maps has always been solid for me, have no reason to change to anything else. The instructions on lane choice and merging have been spot on. If I am travelling somewhere without cell coverage, I download the offline maps and those work very well. Sorry up-and-coming-black-box company, but Google maps is a tough act to follow.

  19. Sounds great for my project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My home built attack drone project.

  20. Broadcom 30cm GPS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What happened to this Broadcom GPS chip using L1 and L5 with 30cm accuracy? It was reported to be in 2018 flagship phones but I've heard nothing since the press releases last year.
    http://gpsworld.com/big-news-from-broadcom-30-cm-positioning-for-consumers/

  21. What accuracy are we talking about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The accuracy commitments do not apply to GPS devices, but rather to the signals transmitted in space. For example, the government commits to broadcasting the GPS signal in space with a global average user range error (URE) of 7.8 m (25.6 ft.), with 95% probability. Actual performance exceeds the specification. On May 11, 2016, the global average URE was 0.715 m (2.3 ft.), 95% of the time. GPS Accuracy

    User accuracy depends on many factors in addition to range accuracy, so the result is GPS Accuracy Levels it is possible now to get very accurate positions now, with differential GPS.

    The really big change is that less expensive hardware is now able to handle the more complex math, and it is getting to market. Global Positioning System: The Mathematics of GPS Receivers

    1. Re:What accuracy are we talking about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would all of these error amounts be highly correlated to how close you are to like the two public differential GPS sources out there?

  22. Nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is nothing new. Quadcopters have been doing this kind of accelerometer/barometer/gps sensor fusion for years, with better than 1.5m accuracy.

  23. Only as good as the most recent satelites. by Togden · · Score: 2

    1-3m accuracy isn't actually better than the EU's Galileo constellation which will be fully functional in the next 2 years. The recievers for that are already in flagship android models, and by the time its fully functional (~2020) most phones will have it. Galileo is accurate to 1m and if you pay for it, 1cm.

    1. Re:Only as good as the most recent satelites. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not in urban canyons or tunnels, which is the problem being addressed here.

  24. Marketing BS ... by garry_g · · Score: 1

    I call BS on the explanation ... those "probabilistic methods" are already implemented by most navigation programs, placing you not at the location of the GPS lock, but on the nearest street considering direction of travel.
    Also, who needs 1.5m accuracy for navigation? I've not had any destination that required me to be exact down to anything less than 5m ... even street cutoffs typically do not need to be down to that scale ...

    Now, if they can spit out the coordinates actually down to 1.5m repeatedly for the same location, with me moving more or less erratically in between, and the program being stopped and started again, I will concede my argument ...

    1. Re:Marketing BS ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You need that accuracy to identify which lane you are in. If the app knows which lane you are in it can tell you if you need to change lanes.

      If you don't understand something, just say you don't understand. Dont "call BS" on it like a moron.

  25. I have used it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didnt notice any improvement in accuracy. And the UI/UX were horrible. Plus the app repeatedly froze or crashed. This is not even beta software. Feels like an early alpha.

  26. Re: Another yutz who doesn't know what accuracy me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But their technology only requires a single drop of blood to achieve this level of precision!

  27. Where Am I? by tquasar · · Score: 1

    If you don't know where where you are going, don't go. If you don't know where you are, sit down. If a problem comes along, you must whip it.

  28. resolution of position by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The PTB won't be happy until they can tell not only where you are and who you are (by your cell phone data), but also who you sat next to on the bus and who rode with you in your UBER or car pool. Were you in the front seat or back? It all goes into your dossier.

  29. It's vaporware. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just tried to install, and "this app is incompatible with all your devices". If it won't work with a OnePlus 5 running the latest Android 8, or the many Nexus devices I have, exactly what does it run on? PowerPoint?

  30. Re:Another yutz who doesn't know what accuracy mea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not really sure...I think it may be you who doesn't know what those terms mean. Accuracy is how close your measurement is to the correct value. Precision is how much variance you have between multiple measurements. This article talks about being able to identify correctly which lane you are actually in, which sounds like accuracy to me.

    I assume in the process they are also increasing precision of the readings, too. They are probably cross referencing accelerometer and compass data with high resolution map data over time. Doing things like noting when you make a 90 degree turn, that you must've been in the center lane or right lane at that time and using future accelerometer readings to track future measurements relative to the guessed lane. This would result in multiple readings of the same position to reach the same determination of your specific spot, which would be increased precision. But that is just a side effect of the goal to improve accuracy.

  31. Re:Another yutz who doesn't know what accuracy mea by yagu · · Score: 1
    Mod up! This is one of the most common misunderstandings of precision vs accuracy!

    Because.... in this case, some one could provide their readout of location to 20 decimals. Incredibly precise!

    And, be off in real location by 300', so, not very accurate.

  32. "I'm not that familiar with Android" by PmanAce · · Score: 1

    Idiot, an app is an app, no matter the platform. The added bonus with android is you probably have a back button!

    --
    Tired of my customary (Score:1)
  33. GPS + Inertial navigation + road matching + magic by ehartwell · · Score: 1

    Atia, M, Hilal, A.R. (Allaa R.), Stellings, C. (Clive), Hartwell, E. (Eric), Toonstra, J. (Jason), Miners, W.B. (William B.), & Basir, O.A. (Otman A.). (2017). A Low-Cost Lane-Determination System Using GNSS/IMU Fusion and HMM-Based Multistage Map Matching. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. doi:10.1109/TITS.2017.2672541

  34. Virtual differential GPS? by bobnorton · · Score: 1

    Some of the error in GPS measurements of closely located receivers is correlated. There is more information in the relative measured location of two units than in the absolute measured position of one. (Differential GPS is based on this: an accurate measure of a receiver's location is made by comparing its relative position to a known receiver location.)

    So... rather than estimating the location of each user independently, maybe they fold in the relative position of each user and solve their positions jointly. Or put another way, the systematic error in the users' direct GPS coordinates might be estimated jointly rather than independently. In this way any other information used to more accurately locate individuals could be combined together to the benefit of all.

  35. This is news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Handheld GPS receivers pre smart phones were already accurate within 3 to 6 feet with good satellite coverage. I had already assumed smart phones were even more accurate with cellular triangulation assist and being able to download real-time correction data online. I know when I look at Google maps with the satellite image layer turned on, it's always pretty damn spot on to where I am actually at.