On its quest to provide a more reliable traffic update thru its own service – Google Map, Google recently announce that they are using location-enabled mobile phones to access real-time traffic data.
Using Google Map’s My Location, users send anonymous data thru their GPS-enabled phones to Google describing their speed in moving in a given area. By combining these bits of data with others, Google provide these information back to users to inform the updated traffic layers.
In this way, Google needs user’s cooperation to get accurate data though it didn’t require much effort. Google said that users will just have to turn on their Google Maps before driving and as more people participate on this data transmission, a more accurate traffic report will result.
One catch on this is the users privacy. With this, Google assured that all information sent to Google thru this process will remain anonymous and will permanently delete the data once captured for traffic update purposes.
Also, Google said that this service will be available not only to iPhone and iPod Touch users but also to other smartphone platforms.