Apps: Smartphone Helps You Avoid Red Lights |
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File under Ideas New Products
Author: Mike Werner
Location: Normandy, France
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I knew there was some very usefulness for smartphones, somewhere. Yes, phoning is nice, but so 1990's, texting is nice, but so 2000's, navigation is nice, but so 2010. No, what's really cool is when your smartphone app tell you how fast you should go to catch the next light green. And it's something that's going to happen shortly.
The geeks at MIT  have designed a smartphone app that does exactly that. Using the front camera of your phone (if your phone doesn't have one, stop reading now and go back to your Tandy TRS-80), the software detects when traffic lights change color (red, orange, green), and using complicated formulas (which only MIT folks can understand), it will tell you at what speed you need to be travelling on your motorcycle to reach the light while it is green.
So no more stopping for red lights (and no more drag races).
But it's not just a formula, since that wouldn't be possible. The system uses crowdsourcing, in other words, other users who have the app will be recording the patterns of the red lights, uploading them to MIT's server.
With all that crowdsourced data, the app called SignalGuru, can predict pretty accurately when that light is going green.
So, apart from that sexy voice telling you to turn right at the next intersection, you'll now hear a voice that says "hey, go faster if you want to catch the green light, speed up to 40 mph!". How cool...
Not only will the app save you time, but also save you on fuel, the whole reason the app was created. Tests showed a reduction of fuel consumption of 20%.
Click here for more info on the MIT SignalGuru app
Via: Jalopnik
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