New twist to the GPS concept? Interactive traffic reporting via vehicle speed.

Using cellphones to beat traffic?

A trial using GPS-equipped mobile units provides a picture of freeway speeds. Now — how to get the information to motorists.

By Steve Hymon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 09, 2008

 

A fleet of 100 cars rolled onto a Bay Area interstate Friday to begin perfecting a tool that could one day transform the lives of commuters around the world.

Maybe.

With San Francisco Bay shimmering to the west, university students drove the cars all day back and forth along Interstate 880. Each was carrying a cellphone loaded with Global Positioning System software. And as they drove, it beamed back signals that researchers shaped into a real-time map of traffic speeds.

Of course, maps of freeway conditions already exist and are popular. Who doesn’t know about SigAlert.com or Google maps?

But in the ubiquitous cellphone, some researchers see a two-way device that can not only gather high-quality data on what’s happening on the road, but then deliver information to motorists on which route they should take to shave time from their travels. “Getting that information back to the drivers, that’s the Holy Grail — so drivers can make smart decisions about their commute,” said Thomas West, director of the at UC Berkeley, one of the backers of Friday’s experiment.

Text Messages limit you to 160 characters, WHY?

Who decided a text message would be limited in scope? How was it decided? Frustrated rewording a text to work within the limit?

 

Alone in a room in his home in Bonn, Germany, Friedhelm Hillebrand sat at his typewriter, tapping out random sentences and questions on a sheet of paper.

As he went along, Hillebrand counted the number of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and spaces on the page. Each blurb ran on for a line or two and nearly always clocked in under 160 characters.

That became Hillebrand’s magic number — and set the standard for one of today’s most popular forms of digital communication: text messaging.

Are you calling and driving? Texting and driving? Are you okay with it or should it stop?

 

Take a look at the below article from the Washington Post.  All of us have been behind someone who holds up the green light as they are busy texting. Cell phones, blackberries, PDA’s are incredible efficiency machines there is no doubt. With the advent of new technologies comes these types of questions.

Is going hands free for calls enough? Bluetooth technology makes it easy. Now, how is texting handled with one hand on the wheel?

 

Nationwide Cell Phone Ban for Drivers Urged

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Monday, January 12, 2009; 12:00 AM

SUNDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) — A leading consumer safety organization is calling for a nationwide ban on drivers using all cell phones and other messaging devices.

While there are a few state and local laws banning drivers from using hand-held cell phones, the National Safety Council (NSC) believes it’s time to make it unanimous.

The NSC plans to lobby in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., for laws that ban both hand-held and hands-free cell phone use as well as texting while driving. The council also plans to work with the U.S. government to develop incentive programs and sanctions that will force states to enact such laws.

Cost Cutting Tips for IT professionals

CIO.com posts 20 cost cutting can’t miss Tips:

1) “Buy a wireless telcom expense management service. It pays for itself and more”.

2) “Deploy a corporatewide plan for buying cell phones…this will be cheaper than letting empoyees buy phones and plans and then expensing them”.

See the link for all 20 cost cutting measures!

www.cio.com/article/455127

Cell Phones or Used Cars?

According to the Better Business Bureau on Feb 5, 2009, the cell phone industry received the largest number of complaints surpassing the used car industry. This is a 9% increase in complaints over last year.

Industries doing a large volume of business are naturally going to have a high complaint number…and of course the resolution of complaints is key.

 

The top 3 most complained about industries in 2008 were:

Cell Phone companies

Used cars

Banks

Survey Says…..+ 15m

The CTIA-The Wireless Accociation survey reports that as of December 2008, the industry recorded more than 270 million wireless users. Year over year increase of nearly 15m subscribers! The 12-month record was in 2005 when 25.7m new users came on line.

Other highlights of the survey, over 2.2 trillion minutes used is an increase of over 100 billion minutes from last year, 6 month wireless service revenue breaking records at $75m  w/ annual service revenue topping $148b by end of 2008.

RIM Unseats Apple in The NPD Group’s Latest Smartphone Ranking

By staying exclusively with AT&T, Apple’s i-phone falls to #2 in smartphone rankings. RIM’s Blackberry Curve, with the help of being available on 4 carriers and an aggressive 2 for 1 promotion by Verizon, takes over the top spot with several other Blackberries showing up in the top 5. http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090504.html

Will Apple rebound when it releases a new version of the i-phone? Will Apple cut a deal with Verizon that will take it back to the top? Has Apple tapped its core market and growth will be more difficult going forward? Will future growth for Apple be about price? What do/will businesses need to know to make the best decisions about their wireless needs as the market continues to evolve?

Cell Bill Explosion

As basic cell phones are being replaced throughout organizations with portable computing devices like i-phones and blackberries, productivity is increasing but so are the cell bills that go along with these new devices.  CFO’s and CIO’s across the fruited plain are wondering how to allocate these expenses since most are not using these devices as a replacement to laptop and desktop computers but are adding these expenses to the already staggering technology costs incurred by most companies.  Along with this cell bill cost explosion is an equal, if not greater, explosion in the complexity of these bills.   What once was a confusing set of options and plans has become an indecipherable mess.  

Some companies have chosen to addressed this issue by hiring a person or several people whose only job is to research and analyze the thousands of options and to proofread for errors the pages upon pages of bills they receive each month.  

Others, not willing to go to the expense of hiring, just distribute the job to each department to review their own bills.  Still others contract with outside firms, like the Bill Police, to negotiate contracts and audit monthly invoices. finding errors on your bill (over half of all bills have errors of one kind or another) is where most look for savings but matching the right plan for the way you use wireless technology can be just as important to both saving money and enhancing productivity.  Reporting is another reason many companies outsource to firms like the Bill Police.  With the complexity found in today’s invoices it makes sense to get outside analysis and straight forward reports that provide information you can use to make better decisions about your wireless plans and about your business in general. 

Today there is a general trend toward simplifying and saving.  Business, especially in the current economy, must find ways to simplify and save to continue to grow.  By working with a firm whose total focus is on helping businesses simplify and save on their wireless expenditures, you can be freed to focus on what your business does best.