Foxy’s Blog

Speeding motorists who slow down for cameras face a new threat as Britain’s first urban average speed traps are switched on in the capital. Eighty-four new cameras are being placed on the A13 to the east of London in a bid to reduce the high accident rate on the commuter route.

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Press release. Drivers using a speed camera alert system have less accidents. People using a GPS navigation system increase road safety as well. And now amAze GPS, the leading mobile navigation service, offers both functionalities for the best price in the market.

is a worldwide speed cameras warning system working on mobile phones. The system is collaborative and self-managed: The users “tag” the speed cameras and special electronic trust engines check the quality of the posted information. FoxyTag contains today more than 35′000 fixed speed cameras, mainly in Europe, Australia, Brazil, Taïwan, USA, Canada, Russia, South Africa, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovakia and Israel. FoxyTag signals also mobile speed cameras and ghosts (places where there are often mobile speed cameras).

Speed cameras help to slow down the traffic in dangerous areas and increase therefore the road safety. However, they cause also many accidents, typically by people that brake just before them, by fear of being flashed, even if they weren’t speeding. The solution is obvious: If the main role of speed cameras is to increase road safety, then these cameras must be placed in dangerous areas and well signalized to the drivers. More and more reports (the first was http://www.foxytag.com/news/20070716.pdf) show that people having a speed camera alert system have less accidents than the others.

Another fact, which is less known but still important, is that people using a GPS navigation system in unknown areas provoke less accidents. This fact becomes even more true as these systems improve every day. The new intelligent features that help you to drive efficiently, like telling to change lane in preparation of an oncoming turn, reduces hesitations and last-second dangerous changes of direction. The amAze navigation solution is typically one that meets all the requirements we expect from an efficient “co-driver”.

Today amAze GPS is integrating the FoxyTag speed cameras in its navigation system, further improving the driver’s road safety and allowing the driver to save money by avoiding potential fines. The current version of amAze GPS alerts the driver about fixed and mobile speed cameras on his driving direction. It is enough to turn amAze on and to have a valid GPS signal for the warning system to be activated.

According to Ofer Tziperman, President of LocatioNet (the developer of amAze), “We believe that the FoxyTag database and tagging system is a perfect match to the amAze GPS navigation system. The amAze GPS users can enjoy the peace of mind that the speed camera alerts provide, and they can also report additional fixed and mobile speed cameras. This is a valuable user-generated content for the benefit of all drivers. It is mainly about increasing road safety”. Michel Deriaz, the FoxyTag project leader, is very satisfied with this partnership: “FoxyTag and amAze GPS share a similar philosophy: No useless and expensive gadgets, just precise data presented in a very clear way. I think that current FoxyTag users will easily switch to this nice worldwide navigation system.”

The amAze GPS application is available on most mobile phones and can be tested for free for one month.

amAze in action

For more information please visit:

http://www.foxytag.com
http://www.amazegps.com

– Foxy

Press release. With its new server, FoxyTag proposes a speed camera information with a reliability that was obtained only in labs so far. GoldRadars is the first iPhone application that benefits from it.

FoxyTag is a worldwide speed cameras 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 35′000 fixed speed cameras, mainly in Europe, Australia, Brazil, Taïwan, USA, Canada, Russia, South Africa, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovakia and Israel. FoxyTag signals also mobile speed cameras and ghosts (places where there are often mobile speed cameras).

With the constant increase of the number of users, FoxyTag had to migrate to a new server that greatly increases its power. To make it profitable, FoxyTag proposes a “Gold” service that allows a deeper exploration in the trust links in order to provide an even more reliable speed camera information.

The first commercial application to benefit from this high reliability is proposed by EverdreamSoft. It is called GoldRadars and works on the iPhone 3G. His name, his look and his price clearly position GoldRadars in the up-market products. EverdreamSoft’s CEO, Shaban Shaame, is convinced that the tendency to propose the cheapest speed camera warner of the market is soon over: “People attach more and more importance to reliability. Actually we already observe this new tendency for GPS navigation systems, where recognized branded applications gain market shares over free solutions.” According to Shaban Shaame, people are ready to pay more for quality: “Cheap products are more and more compared to down-market products. And people do not want to have down-market products anymore, especially if they need to trust them to signal speed cameras.” Download statistics of his application show that he is right, at least for the moment.

But is there really a significant reliability increase with this new “Gold” service? For Michel Deriaz, the responsible of the FoxyTag project, the answer is a bit more nuanced: “Lab tests show a real improvement. But in practice it is rare to have speed cameras that are badly or not signalized.” However, when we ask him which speed camera warner he uses personally the response is very clear: “I use and recommend to my friends GoldRadars. The price difference is quickly compensated by the possible speeding ticket that we avoid thanks to this increased reliability.” In other words, people that want to drive really peacefully will have to switch to up-market products when they chose a speed camera warner.

GoldRadars in action

http://www.foxytag.com/en/download.html

– Foxy

A stationary vehicle was accused by a speed camera in The Netherlands of speeding 45 times in one afternoon.

Dutch speed cameraDutch lumber merchant Martin Robben no longer believes that the speed camera never lies. As reported by De Telegraaf, the man was falsely accused of speeding forty-five times on August 25 while his vehicle, a commercial truck, was parked on the side of the road in Oldeberkoop village.

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Swindon has become the first English authority to scrap the use of its fixed speed cameras.

The Conservative-run borough council said it was reinvesting the £320,000 a year maintenance costs for the five cameras in road safety measures.

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Press release. Cheap speed camera warning system doesn’t mean cheap data anymore. Using the FoxyTag worldwide collaborative camera database, a new 1$ speed camera warner surprises the iPhone community.

FoxyTag is a free and legal system to signal speed cameras on mobile phones that works worldwide. 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. Today FoxyTag covers very well Europe and becomes more and more competitive in North America.

But what about all the other countries? Neither FoxyTag nor any serious competitor seemed to be interested. For probably very good reasons, like the fact these countries have sometimes less speed cameras, less connection availabilities, less modern mobile phones and for some of them less money to buy a good speed camera warning system. But things are changing. Speed cameras are financially so interesting for governments that one sees them appearing a bit everywhere in the world. In cities and on highways of course, but also on some straight roads in the deserts! And the people there are more and more equipped with similar devices as the Occidental people are.

To keep a leader position in the speed camera domain, FoxyTag made a partnership with Atoll Ordenadores in order to provide aSpeedCam Scanner, an new application that will be specifically adapted for these new countries. On one hand, it is cheap: Only a single dollar to access more than 30′000 speed cameras. On the other hand, it is optimized for large areas or countryside: Using a bigger radius to get the data, it works also in areas where there is no GPRS coverage. Vitalijs Lennojs, CEO of Atoll Ordenadores, wants to touch a maximum people all around the world: “We are the first to propose a 1-dollar speed camera warner designed to run all around the world and using the FoxyTag high quality database. With aSpeedCam Scanner, we plan to be in the top 20 of the most downloaded applications.” This application enjoys also Michel Deriaz, the FoxyTag project leader: “It is difficult for a collaborative database like FoxyTag to start in new territories, since there is less motivation to use it there. But with such an attractive price we expect to find lots of motivated users that will help us to mark all these new speed cameras.”

So, aSpeedCam Scanner is finally not that much a charitable application, but simply a good deal: The users get a nice application for a very good price, and in return they will have to contribute more!

aSpeedCam Scanner in action

http://www.foxytag.com/en/download.html
http://www.atoll-ordenadores.com/acamscan.html

– Foxy

Speed and traffic light cameras are meant to reduce accidents by discouraging motorists from being too lead-footed or beating the lights. Former reports showed that speed cameras are also responsible of many accidents if not correctly signalized. And now, with the massive installation of red light cameras, we discover that these are even more dangerous.

We started at the beginning of June to collect some articles:
http://www.foxytag.com/news/20090603.pdf
http://www.foxytag.com/news/20090605.pdf
http://www.foxytag.com/news/20090606.pdf
But we had decided to abandon since the story is always the same: A non-signalized speed or red light camera is dangerous!

We also found a list of reports that show that red light cameras are dangerous: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/04/430.asp

– Foxy

Press release. A permanently updated and worldwide speed camera database in your Android Google Phone, that’s what Speed Cam Hunter is proposing to you. By using the FoxyTag speed cameras database, Speed Cam Hunter presents a significant advantage over its competitors.

FoxyTag is a free and legal system to signal speed cameras on mobile phones that works worldwide. 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. In August 2008, FoxyTag opened the access to its server in order to let everyone to develop his own warner or to integrate the speed cameras in an existing application, like a GPS navigation system. A few weeks later we discovered a first candidate called TrackerTag, a system optimized for Symbian S60 phones (Nokia N95, Nokia Navigator…), and then EyeRadars, a version for the iPhone.

And now the expansion of FoxyTag compatible applications seems to continue with this first version working on the brand new Android Google Phone. Christophe Petit, the responsible of the project and former winner of the Google Challenge 2008, would like to follow the worldwide propagation of the Google Pones with his application: “Today most of our clients are from North America. But our two main assets, the fact that we are the first to provide a such collaborative system and the fact that we use the worldwide FoxyTag database, should allow us to widespread our speed cameras warner in Europe from this summer onwards.” These North American users enjoy particularly Michel Deriaz, the FoxyTag project leader: “FoxyTag was not competitive in North America until now. But with Speed Cam Hunter we expect to be soon able to provide the same quality as for Europe.”

Speed Cam Hunter is in beta version and provided for free until the 31st of May 2009. After we expect a price of about 10 € for an unlimited use.

Speed Cam Hunter in action

http://www.foxytag.com/en/download.html
http://www.speedcamhunter.com/

– Foxy

FoxyTag is proud to have EyeRadars Lite among his compatible clients, the first collaborative speed camera warner that is distributed for free. For more information, please visit http://tinyurl.com/clnydv.

While adapting the product in order to take into account the new FoxyTag API, EyeKiwi has been renamed into EyeRadars. For more information please visit http://tinyurl.com/ct85vk.