Gadgetory

being the king of search is not enough for mother google google plans to take over your public transit and parking at least in the US Google's parent company alphabet also owns sidewalk labs and the Guardian has obtained documents and emails that detail a proposal made by sidewalk labs to the city of Columbus Ohio of all places it essentially allows Google to assume control over the city's public transit and parking system the information was obtained through public record laws and details of an offer made by sidewalk labs to provide the City of Columbus with its cloud-based program called flow for free flow would put the city's public transit public parking and transit subsidy program under the control of Google sidewalk labs would also extend the offer of a hundred Wi-Fi kiosks the same ones used in its NYC Wi-Fi project here's what the guardian says about flow and I quote flow applies Google's expertise in mapping machine learning and big data to thorny urban problems such as public parking numerous studies have found that 30 percent of traffic in cities is due to drivers simply seeking parking spots unquote so not only would flow help you find a parking space it could also ease traffic congestion by up to a third field testing technology like this is a large part of why sidewalk labs wants to build a city of its own it needs full scale environments in which to test out its own technologies and theories on urban planning traffic management public transit and of course superfast internet as for how flow will work in practice here's the guardian's explanation and I quote flow will use camera equipped vehicles like Google Street View cars to count all the public parking spaces in a city and read roadside parking signs it would then combine data from drivers using Google Maps with live information from city parking meters to estimate which spaces are still free arriving drivers will be directed to empty spots but sidewalk labs proposal isn't just about getting you a parking space more quickly the emails and documents also detail a pitch to get businesses to temporarily rent out parking spaces otherwise reserved for employee or shoppers there's also a proposal for variable pricing based on demand for example higher prices on weekends at sporting events recreation areas etc the public transit system could also be revolutionized with the help of Google Maps the plan outlines how Google Maps could be updated to include all public transit options as well as the means to pay for them this would include trains subways taxis buses uber lyft and even car and bike sharing services you see a resident would simply plug in a destination and be presented with all the available transit options including the ability to buy public transit tickets as well as pay for taxis and other car services this would not only be a massive convenience for residents but it also be massively beneficial to Google itself of course if you guys remember from like 15 years ago when people were making money hands over fist in the dot-com bubble remember we didn't call it a dotnet bubble or dot org bubble we didn't call them dot biz billionaires we called them dot-com billionaires because that's the power of a dot-com now why is that because no domain name extension tells your story with the same degree of trust as a dot-com or dotnet domain name.com and dotnet domain name extensions inject credibility into your online presence save 15% on domain names and web hosting when you use our coupon code Android at domain.com check out when you think domain names think domain.com so what do you guys think does this scare you guys let me know in the comments below I'll be looking forward to reading them you