Foxy’s Blog

Be wary, American motorists, the Russians are coming! At least their speed cameras are. Next year, Ontario-based Peak Gain Systems will offer a cutting edge photo radar gun in the United States that was developed in Russia, and it could be coming to a town near you.

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Press release. After the iPhone, it is now the Google phones that benefit from the FoxyTag technology to receive in real time speed cameras on one’s Android smartphone.

FoxyTag is a worldwide speed camera warning system working on mobile phones. The system is collaborative and self-managed: The users “tag” the speed cameras and some electronic trust engines check the quality of the posted information. FoxyTag contains today more than 37′000 fixed speed cameras, mainly in Europe, South Africa, Australia, Maghreb, UAE, Brazil, China, Taïwan, USA, Canada, Russia, New Zealand, Singapore and Israel. FoxyTag signals also mobile speed cameras and ghosts (places where there are often mobile speed cameras).

Available since long time on iPhone and older phones running with java, FoxyTag has now its Android version. Named EverySpeedCam, it was designed by Atoll Ordenadores and validated by FoxyTag. This validation guaranties a high level of reliability and a perfect integration with the trust engines.

Compared with other speed camera warning systems running on Android, EverySpeedCam keeps all the assets of FoxyTag. The data and the trust links created between the users are still managed by the FoxyTag’s trust engines. A former iPhone user that opts for a Google phone recovers so all its data. His former contributions (tagging or confirmation of speed cameras) would be transferred in a transparent way. This point is capital for Michel Deriaz, the FoxyTag project leader: “People change more and more often their mobile phone, and migrations to Android are currently significantly increasing. The users are therefore reassured if they have exactly the same speed trap information, with the same reliability, even if they change their phone.” The other main asset is that this new application benefits directly from the former contributions of thousands of users since it connects to the common database.

The Google spirit inspired also the business model, where a basic version can be used for free and without time limit. The difference is that this version doesn’t mention mobile speed cameras. For Vincent Parisod, the sales and communication manager of FoxyTag, this model pleases to smartphone customers: “This model replaces little by little the sharewares, these applications that the user can freely test but for a limited time. The smartphone being something very personal, people don’t like to install application that are potentially only temporary. They prefer to install an application they will be able to keep as long as they want, and then freely chose when or if they want to upgrade to the paying version in order to benefit from all functionalities.” The paying version of this speed camera warner is available for 3.50 EUR.

EverySpeedCam in action

For more information please visit:

http://www.foxytag.com
http://www.atoll-ordenadores.com

– Foxy

Speed cameras have failed to cut accidents on many roads and have actually led to a rise in casualties on some routes, official figures show today.

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Press release. TrackerTag is an easy to use iPhone application that alerts you as soon as you are in a 15-second range of a speed camera. The software is based on FoxyTag’s technology which is already used by many other systems and with a growing number of users.

The idea consists in the creation of a virtual tag near every speed camera you drive by. From then on all users will be alerted as soon as they get close to the same device so as auditory and visual. As an informed user you will be able to validate or invalidate the presence of a speed camera and this will automatically generate a trust link between you and its creator. The more a tag is validated the more the information is considered as reliable. This way all the information you will receive will be trustworthy and unreliable tags will be erased from the database. Creating a tag is very easy thanks to an intuitive user interface. All you need to do is selecting the kind of speed camera and indicate in which direction it was set, so people won’t be alerted for the ones on the opposite side of the road. As easy as the touch of a button you can also invalidate a tag for a camera which has been moved or doesn’t exist anymore. This application isn’t in any way designed to encourage people in speeding or any other faulty behavior. It has been thought for drivers to be more concentrated on the traffic than on their speedometer because of the fear of having a speed ticket. Studies have shown that people tend to abruptly hit the breaks when they see a speed camera even if they were driving within limits which can cause traffic jams or even accidents.

TrackerTag in action

For more information please visit:

http://www.foxytag.com
http://www.trackertag.nl
Flyer

– Foxy

The number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads continued to fall despite speed cameras being stripped out across the country, according to the latest figures released by the Government.

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Slow drivers cause the most frustration. Motorists call for ’slow-speed cameras’ to crack down on dawdlers who cause other drivers to attempt risky overtaking manoeuvres.

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Suite à la colère qu’à suscité le gouvernement en voulant interdire les avertisseurs de radars, les fabricants de ces appareils se sont regroupés sous l’égide de l’AFFTAC pour se faire entendre. Au lendemain des grèves, des discussions ont été entamées entre le gouvernement et l’AFFTAC. Le protocole vient d’être signé.

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Horses have to respect speed limits as well…

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Motorists across France are organizing a multi-city protest of the government’s decision to conceal its photo enforcement operations and ban the use of GPS devices that can identify camera locations. The group known as AFFTAC, which represents the users and providers of driver assistance technologies, has scheduled the mass demonstrations for June 2. The idea is to create gridlock in multiple locations, especially Paris, until the government surrenders.

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We like it when the accumulated speed data from GPS devices helps us avoid traffic incidents and school zones. As it turns out, though, there are some other uses for the same stats. Dutch news outlet AD is reporting that such data captured by TomTom navigation devices has been purchased by the country’s police force and is being used to determine where speed traps and cameras should be placed.

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