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Google Maps has made traffic information available to many US cities for a long time but it is only within the last year that Canada has started to see traffic information for major cities. As I began to use the live traffic feature more often, I started to think about how Google could gather accurate traffic data in real time.

Here is an example of the live traffic data overlayed on a regular Google Map. Pretty cool stuff.

In order for Google to collect such massive amounts of traffic data I assumed they must have set up a very large and expensive network of sensors near roadways that kept track of changing traffic conditions. But I was wrong. It turns out that, as usual, Google has devised a much more innovative solution that costs a hell of a lot less than what I had envisioned.

I will let Google describe their solution with the following excerpt that was taken from the Official Google Blog. This is how Google can track traffic flow on various roads.

If you use Google Maps for mobile with GPS enabled on your phone, that’s exactly what you can do. When you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location, your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you’re moving. When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions.

We continuously combine this data and send it back to you for free in the Google Maps traffic layers. It takes almost zero effort on your part — just turn on Google Maps for mobile before starting your car — and the more people that participate, the better the resulting traffic reports get for everybody.

Well that makes sense to me but I would have never thought of that. Google is using their own Google Maps for mobile application that is freely available on millions of phones. All you have to do is consider the many iPhone users utilizing Google Maps to get an idea of how this process works. The individual phones get their location and speed information from GPS chips embedded in the phones and can send that information back to Google servers. Google can then aggregate the information from lots of phones to formulate an idea of how traffic is moving along a specific road. Thankfully Google can also weed out the non-sense type of data such as someone walking on a sidewalk that could potentially mess up the traffic flow estimates.

As smartphones become more and more popular it seems fitting that Google has found a way to exploit this in order to bring an amazing new service to its already feature rich Google Maps experience.

It was Christmas day when I told my cousin that I wanted to create a camera that would automatically upload pictures to my computer through a wi-fi connection. It seemed like a reasonable idea but I admittedly had no idea how to proceed. It turns out that this idea was already well under development and a product called “Eye-Fi” is now available on the market.

The really brilliant thing is that this company did not develop the technology around a camera, but instead they developed the technology around a SD card! Since most modern cameras already use SD cards to store pictures, it makes perfect sense to create an SD card that has a wi-fi transmitter crammed inside. So all you have to do is insert the “Eye-Fi” card into your SDHC compatible camera and it will be able to upload your pictures and video via Wi-Fi in real time! Man, I wish I had thought of that.

This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. At the most basic, it means that you can take pictures around your house and they will automatically be transferred to your home computer. Think about hosting a party while taking pictures and having them displayed on your TV only seconds later. Awesome! But this technology extends beyond the home because while you are traveling or out for the day, your images can be uploaded at any Wi-Fi hotspot and automatically sent to your home computer or any web sharing site like Picasa. If you don’t happen to find a Wi-Fi hotspot during your travels, then your pictures will automatically be transferred to your computer once you return home to your own Wi-Fi connection. Of course, you can also have your videos automatically uploaded to YouTube (I hear it’s popular these days).

The features of this new product keep on coming with geotagging, and endless memory mode. The geotagging feature uses Wi-Fi Positioning Service (WPS) technology to tag your photos with location information so you will be able to keep track of where you were when you snapped that awesome pic. Desktop applications like iPhoto and websites like Flickr and Picasa also allow you to visually see this information on a map. The endless memory mode means that once your pictures or videos are uploaded to your desired location, they are removed from your camera which means lots of empty space for more pictures!

As of right now the Eye-Fi cards come with different features and at different price points. You can see a comparison of the different available cards here.

Google has partnered with Eye-Fi to offer 200 GB of online storage on Picasa and an Eye-Fi card for $50. The 200 GB of online storage lasts for one year and you can decide to renew or cancel the service at the end of the year. This seems like a great deal to me considering the 4GB Eye-Fi Home video card is valued at $69.99 (USD).

Most people do not associate Petro Canada and Cellular Phones, but this successful gas station chain has a series of prepaid cell phones that they sell in Canada. These phones are aimed towards people who are not heavy phone users and want an easy and inexpensive solution to keep in touch while they are on the go.

The Petro Canada phone service piggy backs on the Rogers Wireless network that covers 93% of the population in Canada. This is an important feature to take note of because it means that you can take the SIM card out of your Petro Canada phone and stick it in to any Rogers phone! Since your SIM card acts as your identity on any network, you can put your Petro Canada SIM card into a Rogers phone and it will automatically port your previous phone number and other important information to your Rogers phone.

Why would you want to insert you Petro Canada SIM card into a rogers phone? Well… Petro Canada only has a small collection of basic phones that they sell and Rogers has the best selection of phones in Canada. It all depends on your cell phone habits, but a lot of people find the Petro Canada prepaid service a more favourable option compared to the Rogers Pay as you Go service. So this nifty trick gives you the best of both worlds as you get the simple and affordable Petro Canada rates and also get the excellent selection of mobile handsets offered by Rogers.

Do the PC SIM cards only work in Rogers Phones

Not necessarily. The Petro Canada SIM cards will work in any phone that is locked to Rogers but the SIM cards will also work on any unlocked GSM device that uses the North American bands (850/1900 Mhz). Google should be able to verify the wireless bands for any well known phone.

What about data plans with Petro Canada

This is where things start to get a little more convoluted. But don’t worry because it’s not all bad news on this front. PC offers unlimited web browsing for $10 per month but you can expect slow data rates compared to advanced 3G technology. And to put it simply, if you want to get data working on a Rogers or other unlocked phone you will likely have to do a lot of research and fiddling to get anything working. Most people report that they can get web browsing working on their non-PC phones but they are not able to get applications like Blackberry, iPhone, and Android apps working. You should be ready for a hit or miss situation with data plans on Rogers/Unlocked phones.

Is this a perfect setup?

Admittedly, swapping your Petro Canada SIM card into another phone is not a perfect scenario (as compared to sticking with the original provider), but it is another option that you should consider. Lets face it… there are not many options in Canada when it comes to the wireless industry so any new ideas are a welcome treat (no matter how crazy they are).

Petro Canada Rates

The basic idea is that all local minutes are 25 cents and the prepaid top up minutes last for a longer period of time than most prepaid plans in Canada.

Text Messaging

As previously stated these rates may not appeal to the heavy usage - cell phone addicts, but Petro Canada offers a different style of service that is an option for many Canadians who would otherwise not jump into the world of mobile telephones.

Until recently I was unequivocally convinced that aliens would in theory be able to pick up our radio and TV broadcasts and watch them wherever they may reside in the universe. I have been told these signals will propagate through space for all eternity by physics teachers, NASA scientists and many other reliable media sources. Everything changed in an instant when a friend of mine asked me a simple yet insightful question that I had not considered for some reason. “Why don’t the TV and radio signals disperse as they travel farther away from Earth?”. I literally had no answer to this question because when I thought about it, it made complete sense that the signals would get fainter and fainter to the point where they would no longer be recognizable compared to the background static of space.

It turns out that my rather intelligent friend was right on the money. Despite many years of being told that aliens can watch our TV broadcasts, it is very unlikely for this ever to occur. The reason is due to the inverse-square law of propagation that applies to all types of electromagnetic radiation. This law states that signal strength is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source (Earth in this case). This means that by the time any signal leave our Solar System, it is already extremely weak and almost unrecognizable without huge radio dishes the size of the Arecibo dish (305 meters in diameter). And considering it only takes ~21.9 hours for any signal from Earth to leave our Solar Systems, that is nowhere near eternity or even long enough to reach the nearest star system.

It has been estimated by researchers that the average TV or radio signal broadcasted from Earth will have faded into the background static of space about halfway before reaching our nearest neighboring star (Alpha Centauri - 4.4 light years away).

So although the thought of aliens watching an episode of Survivor or cheering on their favourite NFL team is rather amusing, it seems as though this old myth is officially dead. And this is probably for the best because it is beleived that the first high-powered television signals that aliens could pick up are Hitler’s broadcasts at the Nuremburg rallies.

Way back in June I wrote a post about a new Google project that was under development named Google Wave. I was eagerly awaiting a chance to try it out but I knew it would be a long wait. Yesterday I finally received an invite to Google Wave (via my sister!). I quickly made the plunge and was in my first “wave” within minutes.

My initial impressions of Google Wave left me feeling like it was nothing more than a glorified online chat program. Although the more I played with it the more I understood what capabilities it can bring to the table. I will go out on a limb and claim that Google Wave is now the best program for online collaboration.

Aside from the fact that Wave makes it easy for many users to come together and discuss and share whatever they please, the inherent advantage of Google Wave is that it is part of the line up of Google applications. This will make it simple for anyone to start a Google Wave account since they likely already have a Google email and password (or atleast everyone should).

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It’s time for you to take out a bank loan because you are going to need it if you intend to buy this innovative keyboard. Russian designer Art Lebedev has combined technology and artistic design to develop a $1600 keyboard that has an amazing “WOW” factor.

The insanely priced but still desirable “Optimus Maximus” keyboard features a tiny screen on each key for a total of 113 screens in all. Having an OLED screen in each key means the keyboard can dynamically change its display depending on what you’re doing.

For example, hold down SHIFT and all keys go uppercase. Set specific hotkeys depending on what program you are using. Set a key to monitor your CPU usage or display what iTunes track you are currently playing. You can even play videos or animated gif images on a key.

Here is a video showing the Optimus Maximus keyboard in action:

Here is the latest installment of the “Did you know?” series of videos. These videos are great because they are always up to date and show how the media landscape is changing around us. (217,541 text messages sent in one month by one guy… That’s crazy!)

Here are the previous videos in this series:

• Did you know 3.0?
  
• Did you know 2.0?
  
• Did You Know, Shift Happens
  

The Canadian mobile marketplace has been a pretty boring and outdated scene for a long time. Not only are the average monthly plans among the most expensive in the world, but the cellular networks that we rely upon are outdated and unreliable. Until recently, Rogers was the only major Canadian company to have a 3G network while Telus and bell were lagging behind with older technology. What this meant was that Rogers was the only company that could offer 3G smart phones and could charge outrageous prices for the phones because they had zero competition. Things were looking pretty bleak for the past couple years until Telus and Bell announced that they were working together to launch a brand new 3G network that was among the most technically advanced in the world!

3G for all

Bell and Telus launched their brand new 3G networks on November 4, 2009 and November 5, 2009 respectively. This was very exciting because it meant that Bell and Telus could finally offer new and more exciting smart phones to their customers who had been stuck with older and out of date phones. It was also exciting to see the pricing plans they would unveil as they would now be competing directly with Rogers in the smart phone marketplace.

The iPhone

In Canada, Rogers was the only company to sell the iPhone because they were the only 3G carrier and hence was the exclusive iPhone carrier by default. Since Rogers knew that they were the only game in town for the iPhone they decided to charge ridiculous prices for their iPhone plans ($68/$83 per month). Many Canadians took offense to the outrageous price points but in the end the iPhone still became the most popular phone in Canadian history. I’m sure that Bell and Telus took great satisfaction when they had the chance to finally launch the iPhone on their new 3G network. I was watching intently to see if Bell and Telus would undercut Rogers and make their iPhone an affordable choice. They did not disappoint and started offering the iPhone on monthly contracts for only $50! (Take that Rogers). Needless to say, I’m sure there are many upset Rogers customers at the moment.

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With the recent popularity boom of Twitter, we have seen Facebook flip-flop on its future plans. But today I took a look at a new release from Facebook called Facebook Lite.

Check it out at: lite.facebook.com

What is the purpose of Facebook Lite?

The main goal is to trim down the Facebook that we are all used to and present a much cleaner and faster loading Facebook client that gets rid of the unnecessary Facebook apps and extras. The other reason for Lite is that Facebook is now becoming hugely popular in developing countries where internet speeds are routinely slow or where internet may only be only available on mobile phone networks. Facebook Lite allows users to quickly check out there online profile since it loads in approximately 1/4 of the normal time.

The Verdict?

I like it. I can’t say that I will always check Facebook Lite compared to the regular Facebook, but Facebook Lite has about 95% of the content I want to see so why bother with all the extra bells and whistles that I don’t even care about.

Google decided to give the tech world some big news last week when they announced their plans to create an open source Operating System named Chrome OS. Google’s plan is to initially target Chrome OS towards netbooks and you will likely start to see some running the OS in the second half of 2010. This is all very exciting news but it caught me a little off guard because Google already has an Operating System… well sort of. Android is the mobile operating system that Google has developed and it is already running on cell phones and even some netbooks. Of course, Android was never going to be able to take the place of a full operating system like Microsoft Windows so I definitely understand Google’s recent announcement.

What is Android?

Android is a mobile operating system released by Google that can be run on cell phones. It was origionally thought that Google was going to realease a “Google Phone” that would be a direct competitor to the iPhone. However, google took a different approach (a much smarter approach) and created only the mobile software so that it could be run on any cell phone hardware. The advantage of this is clear because any cell phone manufacturer can now choose to use this free software instead of the software being tied to one specific phone (i.e. the iPhone).

Which phones are currently using Android?

There are two phones that currently come with Android pre-installed:

• HTC Dream
• HTC Magic

These two phones were first released in the United States in October of 2008 and were the first phones on the market to use the Android platform. These two phones were just recently released in Canada by Rogers.

The next year will be a very exciting time for Android enthusiasts because Google has announced that they expect atleast 20 new mobile phones to be running Android within about a year.

The next Android phone to be released will be HTC’s 3rd Android phone named the HTC Hero. It will be released in Europe by the end of August with North American release dates to follow. (I think the HTC Hero looks fantastic and I can’t wait to get one!)

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