INTRODUCTION
Have you ever wished that you could anticipate police speed traps before entering them? Better yet, what if you could have this functionality from your cell phone? Imagine the money you’d save on tickets! Fantasy may become reality as a new program called trapster comes to your phone.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) has provided a commercial signal for over 30 years; last holiday season the personal GPS receiver was a hot gift idea. The GPS hardware has been miniaturized to the point that many smart phones now contain the technology. This capability offers a platform for the obvious; mapping, driving directions and E911 applications. However, a new breed of Location Based Services (LBS) which use the technology are emerging to enhance our daily lives. A new twist to LBS is the addition of Skyhook Wireless Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) which provides position based on triangulations of over 23 million Wi-Fi hotspot locations stored in the WPS database. WPS enhances the ability to determine position when you are not in sight of GPS satellites or you don’t have a GPS receiver but have a Wi-Fi adapter. Since there are more Wi-Fi hotspot than cell towers, Skyhook claims an greater accuracy than cell tower triangulation. Of course the WPS technology is not as accurate as GPS, but it provides greater coverage in urban areas and a position that is close enough for most LBS applications. The advantage of using WPS in addition to GPS is the time to retrieve the first fix. The initial time to first fix is a problem that has plagued devices with integrated GPS hardware. This latency is critical to the success of LBS applications, because individuals will most likely use them on the spur of the moment. The hybrid GPS/WPS approach allows the application to retrieve a first fix very quickly thus by circumventing the current integrated GPS first fix issue.
One of these new LBS applications is trapster.com. The idea behind trapster.com was to merge social networking concepts with LBS to provide users a means of being alerted to and the identification of police activity, speed traps and camera locations in real time. In essence the creator of trapster, Peter Tenereillo, wanted a Facebook meets eBay ratings meets radar detectors application. The community and sharing of information are critical for trapster in order to fulfill its goals. This sounds simple, however to make the concept a reality the system needs to incorporate several technologies. The location entered by users needs to be scored for validity. The applications used to report speed and camera traps need to be available on many different platforms. The GPS and WPS technologies need to be merged in order to provide the most accurate location information. Let’s see how well trapster.com brings it all together as the social of radar detectors. And specifically on Windows Mobile!
The user paradigm for trapster.com is simple: the user community identifies and submits locations of police activity, speed traps or camera locations. The location is entered manually or by using the LBS component built into the web site or mobile application. The more users enter the same location, the higher the validity score for that entry. The entry is also scored by the number of highly validated locations created by the user.
SETUP
This is the trapster.com home page. It is possible to submit traps anonymously on the web site, however you will need to register to use the mobile device applications.
The mobile trapster application runs on Nokia S60 based smartphones, Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6, Blackberry, and devices which support Java/J2ME .jad applications.
Here we have the ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center installation routine. The install process is simple and there are no desktop options to choose from.
The setup on the device provides the standard choice of locations for the installation of trapster. Currently there is no option to perform an over the air installation using a .cab file.
The trapster mobile application is very intuitive and easy to use.
PRODUCT FEATURES
The trapster application is made up of 10 individual programs which can be executed from the trapster mobile folder found under programs. The application runs in the background to continuously monitor your position and provide you with voice alerts to reported police activity and/or traps. The entry of police activity or traps is as easy as double tapping on the type of report you want to submit.
Trapster by default uses its own hybrid location algorithm, constantly determining the best type of fix given the type of hardware available, current signal strength, but the setup program allows you to force either GPS or Skyhook’s WPS if desired. The ability to start the application when you boot your device is also available. The audio alerts can also be modified with .wav files of your choice.
You can also associate numeric keys to initiate the different program functions in trapster. It would be nice to be able to associate Windows Mobile hardware buttons to the different trapster functions when it is active. Using the numeric pad on the slide out keyboard with my Tilt is not very handy in the car, so I use Microsoft Voice Command to report traps. As example to report a live police activity, I initiate Voice Command and say "start report live police", which initiate the trapster report livepolice function.
The view application displays your longitude and latitude from either the WPS database (right) or the GPS (left). The interesting item to note is that the WPS position is actually the street behind the shopping center I was at. The GPS position has me in the shopping center. The speaker icon in the upper right hand side of the screen allows you to mute the voice alerts. The world icon in the upper left hand side of the screen launches the mobile trapster.com web site (http:www.trapster.com/m). It would be nice to have larger icons so you can use your finger to initiate the web access or mute functions. That said, you can use the D-Pad to access the web icon.
The view screen shows the Live Police entry I just made as textual data (left). The detail of the entry (right) can be accessed by tapping the entry or using using the D-Pad. The detail information provides the closest intersection, longitude, latitude, time of report, confidence level, and reporters.
The mobile trapster web site (world icon on view screen) displays a Google map with the police activity in the shopping center where I am located. You will note that Greenbrier street at the top of the map, is the location that was reported by Skyhook’s WPS system in an earlier view screen print. The color of the pin provides the confidence level of the information. Green for low confidence, blue for medium confidence, and red for high confidence. The mobile web site application does not use WPS or GPS and currently only displays map information based on information passed to it by the mobile trapster application or entered by the user.
The trapster web site provide a configuration page which allows you to set the radius for alerts and the types of alerts you want to receive, as well as the level of confidence of the reports.
trapster also has a feature to send SMS or email alerts based on a address/zip code and radius you set.
trapster provides a Google MyMaps Mapplet to view reports in a customized map.
This is a video of trapster in action using a Nokia N95, the application is very similar to the Windows Mobile version.
trapster provides quite a few options for viewing and entering police activity and traps. This LBS application makes full use of the technology, works very well with Windows Mobile and as a social network trapster can enhance our driving experience.
trapster support is handled
HELP SUPPORT
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
I had no issues running trapster on my Tilt running Windows Mobile 6, however as with any GPS based application I sometimes have trouble getting a quick GPS fix and had to use the HTC QuickGPS utility to resolve the issue. It seems that if I use my GPS everyday, I rarely have an issue, however if I go more than a couple days without using it I need to run QuickGPS regardless of the GPS application I want to use. There are a couple of minor display annoyances like the city name being cut off on the view screen, however nothing that would stop you from using trapster.
BUGS AND WISHES
I would love to see a single user interface with large function icon easy to touch rather than 11 programs displayed in a folders. This would allow you to map the main executable to a Windows Mobile hardware button making one handed operation simpler. The view function would also benefit from large icons to access the mobile web site and alert mute function.
trapster is free and can be downloaded from the trapster website.
PURCHASING
PROS
Easy to use
No GPS required
Driver-friendly
Free
CONS
No Windows Mobile hardware key support
One-handed operation with a slide-out keyboard is awkward
Minor screen display annoyances
| Value |  |
| Ease of Use |
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| Features | |
Overall |
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The Location Based Services concept is here to stay and trapster uses it very well, by incorporating social networking as a means to gather and share information about police activity and traps with the use of GPS/WPS location determination to help localize that information. trapster’s hybrid implementation of GPS and WPS, provides the users with the best of both worlds. In densely populated areas where a GPS signal can be hard to receive, Skyhook’s WPS swings into action determining location based on nearby Wi-Fi signals. WPS is not perfect but close enough for this type of application. The multitude of entry mechanism available to users (web, smartphone, Phone transcription, SMS) should make it easy for trapster’s social base to grow and with its patented confidence algorithm, scoring entries should provide the user community with accurate alerts. This social of radar detectors works very well and provides valuable information. The District of Columbia has shown that the use of speed cameras has decreased speeds in the enforcement areas, why not be alerted to those areas ahead of time with trapster. This is great use of the technology, but its usefulness will also depend on users sharing information.
OVERALL IMPRESSION
trapster was chosen as one of the 15 finalists in this year’s NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge Americas. Whether or not trapster is chosen the winner this week at CTIA 2008 in Las Vegas, I believe it is has tremendous potential. All we need is for the millions of drivers out there to start reporting…
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