Won't be long now ...

http://www.xmradio.com/weather/

I expect my next car will have Nav with realtime traffic AND weather (the latter being extremely useful for road warriors).

I know this is coming ... it's just too easy to make this happen. Wonder if IBM will help integrate this like they did for the RL real time traffic

After getting the Nav on my '05 Ody Touring ... I am sooooo sold on it

 

I think this is still a long time away. Consider the fact that the traffic reports on regular FM / AM are never up to date, plus the weather forcasters are always wrong, the backend technology is not ready for real-time data yet.

However, I think this is exciting progress and hopefully will work.

I read the the RL's real time traffic feature is pretty limited. It will try to tell you high traffic spots, but it can not redirect you around it.

 

Hmm - not sure what you mean on both points.

1) The RL is getting real time traffic to its Nav via XM. It is limited as far as which cities are doing it, but it certainly is going to be as accurate as whatever data source it has. I find that traffic reports are getting much better and more real time in my area so I suspect XM will push that feed right down to the Nav from the most reliable source.

2) Not sure what forcasting has to do with this. I am not sure about your local weather station, but the doppler technology is unreal ... and accurate. This is about a live doppler image overlay on to the Nav with the overlap being based on position of car. I can get this today on my Blackberry over the wireless Internet connection and the delay is about 5 minutes. I predict we are less than 2 years away from initial implementation (I actually have some inside information on that ... and yes ... it involves Honda)

 

I hear ya. If I listen to a traffic report on my local radio station, most of the time it's inaccurate (ex. they tell me there is an accident blocking the road somewhere, but as I pass the spot the accident is gone). Maybe XM has better reporting, but since I don't have XM, I don't know.

Yes, doppler is accurate because it's the weather at this moment.

Looks like cool stuff, but then again my friends are impressed with just the navi!!!

 

No fair!!!

 

 

it's possible. just look at the garmin nav systems. they are handheld and you can get weather info, and all kinds of other data. they are primarily used by private pilots so they can have all this info when they fly. so this can be added to a system like ours, but then again, why would you need it? just turn a news radio station on and get the info. personally, i wouldn't pay any extra for something like this cause again, it would be completely useless and unneccessary for a car.

 

Yeah ... useless in CA

"Damn - this thing is broken ... no rain, no snow, is it on?"

 

My friend came up with an intresting idea.. if the nav antenna could be two way in that it knew where you were and how fast you were going if it could use the data anonomyously to create real time traffic..

 

Nice.. maybe they need earthquake warnings

 

That sounds pretty sweet Provench. My dream NAV would also have (on top of the realtime weather and Traffic data) is map data, road construction data, points-of-interest, phone book, firmware updates etc... updated in real-time, or at least periodic downloads like Norton Live-Update or Windows Update via cellular or whatever in the car. That would be sweet.

 

The optimal in-car "nav" system is a terminal with a wireless link into the car from remote servers.

The US wireless networks are too patchy to support this right now. Could work in Japan. Nextel has a nav system like this where the turn-by-turns download into the Moto GPS phone, and then the phone walks you thorugh the turns in real time. Arrows only, no maps.

But the US will lag Europe and Japan due to infrastructure issues.,.. and insufficient gov'mt regulation of wireless during the Reagan years.

Go Universal Service Act!

BTW< I also understand the RL to automatically go around traffic jams.

 

I read it in Road and Track:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article....&page_number=1

The RL has an abundance of technologies. The most important is the navigation system, which displays traffic data — a first in the U.S. Information is transmitted by XM radio and XM is responsible for providing the service at an as-yet-undecided monthly fee. At first, traffic will be available for only 20 major urban areas. Because there isn't a lot of infrastructure for collecting traffic data, nor a standard reporting system, it will take time to expand coverage. The navigation system isn't capable of re-routing to go around traffic snarls; it'll just tell you where they are.

 

Yes, I was incorrect, they still want you to hit the reroute button. They do color-code the traffic flows and show jams without prompting, but they won't re-route you without your request on a one-time basis.

I should have thought that through...