Smooth Start for I-95 Traffic Network

GPS is being put to use along Interstate 95 from New Jersey to North Carolina in what USA Today calls “the most ambitious use of technology to combat traffic congestion.”The system, which could become a model for other high-traffic highways, gives drivers real-time traffic information to help them anticipate delays. Data will be collected from more than 800,000 GPS devices on delivery vans, trucks, taxicabs and other service vehicles, from sensors embedded in the roadways, from toll tag data such as EZ Pass, and from cellphones.

The information will be sent within three minutes to state transportation departments that will then alert drivers via road signs, 511 phone systems, mobile alerts, and the Internet. The system will enable officials to get more detailed information to a broader audience. As reported in the February 1 GPS World’s Navigate! newsletter, Inrix Inc. will collect the data under a $1 million contract with the 16-state I-95 Corridor Coalition.

Phone in Your Play Time

Tourality, a multiplayer GPS game for mobile phones, has gone from the beta stage to a free downloadable game. The player’s task is to reach predefined geographic spots before opponents do. Game modes include individual, player versus player, and team versus team mode for up to 40 people. The game was created by specialists of Creative Workline, an Austrian-based IT company.

GPS Busts City Official

Chicago’s superintendent of sewers took a break from his workday and hit the links, but his whereabouts were traced through a cell phone, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Winston Cole has been placed on administrative leave with pay after he was tracked to a suburban golf course when he was supposed to be on the clock at the Water Management Department’s South District headquarters. When GPS-equipped cell phones were distributed to city employees and tracking devices were installed on city trucks, the stated goal was to increase employee productivity. Sounds like it’s working.

Artist’s Claim Exposed as Hoax

An art student who claimed to use GPS and the DHL delivery service to create the “world’s biggest self-portrait” has been exposed as a hoaxer, reports the UK’s Telegraph.

Erik Nordenankar claimed he gave a briefcase with GPS inside to DHL with exact coordinates, then downloaded the GPS’s memory to produce an enormous drawing of himself spanning the globe. The drawing received plenty of media attention, but after bloggers poked holes in Nordenankar’s claim (many noticing that the package supposedly stopped mid-route in the middle of the ocean), DHL confirmed that the artwork was an “entirely fictional project.” The GPS package was never sent around the world.