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posted by martyb on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the East-Bound-and-Down dept.

Google is rolling out Speed Limit information, and more importantly, Speed Camera alerts to Google Maps widely this week.

Google Maps is also rolling out the ability to see speed cameras on a much larger basis too. For users in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, India, and Indonesia, speed cameras will be marked on the map. An audible alert also plays when users approach these cameras as noted in a smaller rollout earlier this week.

Interestingly, in Alberta this is actually being looked on favorably by government officials

"That camera is only facing one way," Sgt. Gottschling said. "Let's say it's only facing northbound, but you can approach southbound or eastbound ... you are still going to get Google telling you caution.

"So you're going to go slowly and cautiously through there which, lo and behold, is actually what we want."

Sergeant Kerry Bates with the Edmonton Police traffic division agrees.

"If it slows people down and they know it's there, that's good," he said. "It's fine. It does the trick."

Anyone else trying to figure the evil angle?


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  • (Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:47PM

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:47PM (#811375) Journal

    So, as others stated, the 'evil' angle is freely providing something that -- as an intended side-effect -- gets them something they want: your real-time location info.

    See also: https://www.gwern.net/Complement [gwern.net] which is just as salient, today, as when Joel Spolsky wrote the original back in 2002.

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