Waze
Waze is a free GPS-based navigation program and traffic information system for smartphones developed by Waze Mobile. Currently the platforms Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Maemo, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone are supported.
- 3.1 Cooperation with TV stations
- 3.2 owners and shareholders
- 3.3 Media reports on the acquisition of Waze
Dissemination and Awards
Waze can be used anywhere on earth by some countries the entire road network is already mapped. Other countries need the support of the user to record, review and updating of the data. From Belgium, Germany, Ecuador, France, Israel, Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Austria, Panama, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary and the United States road maps are enabled for editing. In addition, other countries are in Europe and other continents in planning.
In Austria and Switzerland, the motorway network, the majority of federal highways and the large cities are navigable since 2011. According to Tomio Geron of Forbes Waze had in December 2010, 2 million users in October 2011, 7 million users. Marc Hachman of PC Mag reported that Waze would have 9 million users in December 2011. End of October 2012 had Waze claims to be world's 30 million users. Thus, the company increased its user base in 2012 triple ( Golem.de of 3 January 2013). Waze won the " Best Overall Mobile App award" at Mobile World Congress 2013, beating Dropbox, Flipboard and other apps.
Differences to other navigation systems
Free navigation program and "free software"
According to the terms of use from June 2013 Waze can be used as a navigation program and traffic information system free of charge with all its functions. In the terms of use Waze is also referred to as "free software". "Free Software " is defined in this in June 2013 as follows: " The service uses software to map representations, updates and road information. With respect to some mobile phone devices, is available for Waze, the software is a free software. In such cases, you can pass the software, or change in accordance with the GNU General Public License as well as published by the Free Software Foundation, whether it is the version 2.0 of the License, or any later version. The service, its database, the Waze trademark, the design of the cards of the Services and the built- in software language files are not free software. "
Mobile requires Internet connection
For the use of a smartphone with Waze GPS module with one of the supported operating systems is required. In addition, a mobile internet connection is required, as the maps are constantly spatially dependent from the Internet. The traffic for the navigation is about 10 kB / km. Extrapolating this results in a consumption of about 10 MB when navigating over a distance of 1000 km.
Get recommendations take into account current traffic situation
Waze collects anonymous data about the location and speed of the users and gives them a database to the other users on. This data collection allows the Waze community, the drive to update automatically while the data on the Waze servers.
This makes it possible to continually adjust the recommended routes to the current traffic situation. If a jam occurs on a road or highway, are automatically sent to all Waze users in the affected area traffic reports indicating the street name and visible on the smartphone as a pop-up message in a list of real-time alerts.
Road data can be edited only by users
The difference to traditional GPS navigation programs is that Waze gets its data and information from the users through their use. The software and the use of the road and Landmark database with all the information contained is free.
In addition to the usual functions of navigation systems, the user, in addition to the recording and processing of road, house numbers and locations also send traffic accidents, increased traffic and also photos of accidents on the Waze Server, to pass directly to the other users. The function for further communication of the speed measurements has been turned off in Austria and Switzerland, in these countries, Waze is not suitable as a speed camera detector.
It is possible for users to earn points for the information provided by them. Thus, users will playfully be encouraged to keep the maps up to date.
News with photos of congestion, dangers and accidents
If within a selectable km radius from the driver away to a jam or other traffic event ( eg accident, fog, ice or police control), the Wazer looks in a list of real-time alerts the names of all road segments and their city or municipality with the traffic events. In all countries of the world Waze provides real -time location information of traffic events.
Unlike other apps Waze is also used because of the message of traffic events if road users do not need any route recommendations. That was at 70 percent of all Waze tours the case: the user use the Waze app so often when driving on familiar routes to get references to the transport (for example, traffic reports ) or even which feed it into the Waze network.
Direction -dependent traffic reports on highways in some countries
In traffic jams on motorways the Wazer see in the countries with direction in the highway segments without pressing any keys in the Waze real-time alert list and in the pop -up message on the smartphone, on which exact highway segment and in what direction is the jam. In CH, D, E and NL the Wazer need to click while driving on the display and zoom in to find out where the jam is. The direction of travel is only graphically and recognizable only for drivers with local knowledge.
Fewer points of interest ( POI ) and lower completeness of the cards
The points contained in the Waze database of interest and the detection of smaller roads are mainly dependent on how long Waze is already developed in a particular country. In several European countries, less frequented roads in 2013 are often not included, but may be supplemented by any Waze users. Has the highest coverage in Israel, where Waze has been developed.
In Points of Interest Waze has the advantage over commercial navigation systems is that many companies are found with their name, such as supermarkets, hardware stores, gas stations or other frequently struck by motorists goals. There are also recorded non-public roads in confined work areas of large industrial companies, which are not included in commercial navigation systems.
However, the captured data inventory of Points of Interests is in German-speaking safe in 2013, significantly lower than for commercial navigation systems.
Collaborations and owner of the company Waze
Collaboration with TV stations
In Florida, the system has already changed the traffic. After the TV station NBC -2 had set up a group Waze for commuters, he soon went on to relate the traffic news exclusively on information from the Waze group. According to self-reported data from Waze, the U.S. NBC television network 2 began in October 2010, with data from Waze to improve traffic information for Florida. Later, the station went on to only use the data from Waze. The ABC is also passed in July 2011 to obtain information about traffic jams in Los Angeles on Waze. There were other belonging to ABC stations, including KGO - TV San Francisco, WFAA Dallas, and WPVI - TV Philadelphia.
Owners and shareholders
Like the side TheMarker reported Microsoft invested $ 25 million in the summer of 2011 in the Israel based navigation solutions for Waze. The investment by Microsoft to be less from year to year, but obviously it is possibly to the unique navigation apps from Waze related to Windows Phone 7 allegedly very interested.
The end of 2011, China's richest man, the billionaire Li Ka- Shing from Hong Kong, via his investment company " Horizons Ventures " at the Israeli start -up company Waze involved. Waze received $ 30 million from " Horizons Ventures " and the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ' Digital Growth Fund ". Prior to this involvement were already among the companies Microsoft and Qualcomm to shareholders.
Media reports on the acquisition of Waze
According to reports in many media, such as is in derStandard.at from June 10, 2013 Google in June 2013 apparently shortly before buying the card service Waze and should the bidding race with Facebook now have a head forward. The Internet company would pay over a billion dollars, reported the Wall Street Journal on the night of Monday, June 10, 2013 Originally, Facebook as a likely buyer for a similar price -. Still the world's largest online network to the end of May from the negotiations be exited. Somewhat contradictory appears that the Wall Street Journal, Waze could operate under the umbrella of Google further independent, while some information was also integrated into the map service of the Internet giants. On June 12, 2013 Google announced plans to acquire Waze. Google has not commented on the purchase price, but, according to people familiar with the subject of the purchase price was approximately $ 1 billion. Waze is not integrated into the mapping service of Google, but to provide information on the traffic for Google Maps.
License
While the software up to version 2.4 is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2 and the source code has been made publicly available, this is from version 3.x, the app no longer the case. Although in the Terms of Service is still of a licensing under the GNU General Public License v2 speech, version 3.x is no longer under this License and the source code is not made public. Fay ( Yuval ) Shmuelevitz, vice president of community and Operations at Waze, justified the change to a proprietary license with legal problems of the GPL with respect to the policies of many app stores. The map is not subject to free license and was already partly available before the Waze project started. According to Noam Bardin, CEO of Waze, this is the significant difference to projects such as OpenStreetMap. It is more akin to Google's Map Maker. The rights of the data entered by the user are assigned to Waze Mobile, which also retain control over it. Bardin distrusts maps, which must not be used commercially by its license, but this is not the case in OpenStreetMap, their commercial use is allowed.