Category: Travel

Through the Dutch site Startpagina Verkeer (Startpage Traffic) it's now also possible to obtain real time detailed information regarding traffic jams. The information originates from the TomTom.

When one looks up a route, Dutch Routesite Routenet automatically calculates the actual fuel costs based on the type of car and fuel used. By entering the car's license plate number the model of the car, the fuel consumption and the actual fuel prices are looked up. Based on that Routenet calculates the cost.

Inside Trip has refined searching for flights to such an extent that not just the price counts as a criteria, but also the amount of transfers, the risk of delays and the average amount of times luggage gets lost.

Through SMSParking inhabitants of Amsterdam can pay for their parking with a text message. A simple text message at the beginning and end of parking will do. The driver parks his/her car and sends a text message with the zone-number of the parking lot and the license plate number of the car to 4030. The system confirms that parking has started with a text message. Placing a separate parking ticket in your car will no longer be necessary. As soon as the driver is done parking, (s)he sends a message with just the letter 'q' to state that they quit parking there. The system again confirms this with a text message which will contain the zone, the license plate number, the time, the date and the price.

At Rijschool Network (Driving School Network) people who are looking for driving lessons through Hyves (rijscholen.hyves.nl), a Dutch social networking site, can see where their friends learned to drive and what they thought of it.

Driving schools can make accounts for their instructors. With this account they can use email to invite students to share the driving school through their Hyves (or Messenger) network. Because of the link back to Hyves this can happen through a simple confirmation by the student. In the meantime over 100 driving schools have already registered for the new service.

Google has unveiled a telephone with a built-in compass. 360 degrees recordings of a location (for example seen through Google Maps) can be looked at realistically where you are. You aim for a specific point and if you turn the image will turn with you. It looks very logical.

The NS (Dutch Railway company) displays its disruptions through an RSS feed. With this feed (Dutch) users will automatically be kept up to date of disruptions on the train tracks. Then third-parties have made a delaygadget (Dutch) for Windows Vista. This gadget allows delays to appear automatically on the traveler's desktop.

Carspotter is a new Text Message service. You send the number plate details and receive details over the brand, the date of the number plate, the new value and an estimate of the current value. A second text message tells you more about the technical details of the car (number of cylinders, cylinder volume etc.). Carspotter also works for motorcycles, vans and trucks.

Seatguru tells you exactly where to sit in the aeroplane. After selecting an airline the consumer receives information about the planes used by that airline and how the seating is configured.

Thanks to a built-in compass the map in the Nokia 6210 now automatically turns when a pedestrian turns the phone (see the video). (mc, Dutch). Reading maps is a problem for lots of people, so this will solve lots of problems. In the future we won’t have to read a map at all. Then we just say where we want to go, get instructions through our ear plugs, and even see a street view projected in our glasses, with arrows pointing at what we should look at. This makes today’s complex world a little easier for everyone.

Dutch website for holiday homes and hotels WeekendjeWeg.nl (’A weekend away’) provides directions for guests through a button ‘Add to my TomTom’ with every hotel. Soon it will be possible to add all hotels in one go (am, Dutch). Now we still have to actively transfer information, soon even our TomTom will be a (mobile) window to the virtual world. We then won’t just have dialogues with the TomTom brand through this screen, but also with other brands. Like a Philips TV or a Dell monitor also provides access to the virtual world. Then the dialogue we started with WeekendjeWeg on a bigger screen will just continue on a smaller, mobile screen. Then we will be able to retrieve reviews and have them read to us on our mobile screen. And if we want to know how to get somewhere, TomTom’s brand agent is there for us.

The Dutch Fietsersbond (cyclists’ organization) makes it possible to plan routes through its bike route planner (ld, Dutch). In sports, in transport, in entertainment: brands will support us in all kinds of ways. We don’t have to think ourselves any more, we only have to be. With brands as our coaches.

Auto site ZoMoTo now can directly determine the value of a second-hand car by putting in the license plate. The site also developed a very smart way to search in the complex supply of occasions, and besides offers the possibility to search for new cars. (em, Dutch). Now ZoMoTo still wants to earn money through advertising. As a developing personal travel brand ZoMoTo in the future will also help you when you are using your car, by answering questions like: Where is the cheapest gas station right now? Who can fix this damage the quickest and cheapest way? Or: should I just buy a new car? Every time, every couple of months, a little bit of extra value is added, so the service becomes better and more personal. At a certain point its added value becomes so obvious, that we are willing to pay for it. Then ZoMoTo doesn’t just get a spot in our heads, but also - and especially - in our hearts.

Through the newest TomTom navigation systems with HD Traffic (High Density) motorists now can even see traffic jams on secondary roads. This way not only you can see if the A4 highway is jammed, but also if there is a lot of traffic in the Martin Luther King street (em, Dutch). Brands are starting to help us real time, anyplace. So that we know where our friends are, so we don’t pass a showroom of a special design kitchen we always have wanted to see, or so we won’t miss the ultimate photo occasion. This is a small step in that direction.

US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) yearly organizes a 100 kilometer race for robot cars. With a lot of extra computer power and big sensors these cars nowadays are pretty well capable of navigating themselves through the course. In theory, we could have this technology in our own cars. However, (unfortunately) it will take a long time before we won’t need to get our drivers license any more, and can summon our car (or any other car) to pick us up and drive us home while we are drunk. In the end everything will move itself, so that we can save ourselves the energy, and do what we are better at ourselves. This will not happen until at least 2050.