Need to Find a Parking Spot? Google it.

Google has recently released a new mobile app for Android, Open Spot, that gives people a idea of the parking availability in an are. This crowd sourcing app allows people to indicate when they leave a parking spot or walk by and notice a free one. Seekers can then use that data to search a half mile radius from their current location for spots that have been recently marked. Color coding lets users know how recently a spot has been identified as open. The big caveat in the efficacy is in the technological principal the app is based on, crowd sourcing. This app will only be effective if it can amass a substantial number of users much like yelp vs. urban spoon. Fortunately with Google's backing and it's almost certain future integration with Maps it should garner significant attention. But will it be enough to reach a critical mass? That is unclear but it is a novel attempt at trying to alleviate part of the problem with urban parking.

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Skyhook Wireless knows where you and your friends are

Skyhook Wireless is a wireless technology company and their newest product, SpotRank, has the ability to do what they call "a real-time census". SpotRank is installed on a phone and then is used to collect anonymous location information about the user and then extrapolates that into a population estimate. SpotRank uses a mix of GPS, WiFi, and cellular signals to gain a location and will come bundled on all future Motorola, Android phones. There is no infomation on how accurate the system is for population estimates but as more phones run the program it will inevitable get more accurate.

Currently the data is being marketed for developers of mobile applications but planners could certainly benefit knowing real time and time lapse block level population data.

Real-Time City from SENSEable City Laboratory,

A completely must-see for us planners!! (From tracking emotions, garbage, immigrant communities, and cyclists!)

Assaf Biderman is the Associate Director of the SENSEable City Laboratory, an MIT university research group that explores the “real-time city” by studying how distributed technologies can be used to improve our understanding of cities and create a more sustainable ways of interacting in urban environments.