Google is capturing this information based on the commutes of people using phones with GPS. They are also encouraging more people with such phones to enable Google Maps with My Location so that their phones send anonymous data back to Google indicating the speed at which you’re moving.

Keep in mind that some phones like the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the Palm Pre, come with Google Maps and traffic crowdsourcing pre-installed. The iPhone Maps application doesn’t support it though.

Google presents the concept as an initiative to call upon users to help create live traffic reports that everybody can use, but there is no question that many won’t be entirely enthusiastic about the idea. Google Maps Product Manager Dave Barth talks about privacy concerns:

We understand that many people would be concerned about telling the world how fast their car was moving if they also had to tell the world where they were going, so we built privacy protections in from the start. We only use anonymous speed and location information to calculate traffic conditions, and only do so when you have chosen to enable location services on your phone. We use our scale to provide further privacy protection: When a lot of people are reporting data from the same area, we combine their data together to make it hard to tell one phone from another. Even though the vehicle carrying a phone is anonymous, we don’t want anybody to be able to find out where that anonymous vehicle came from or where it went — so we find the start and end points of every trip and permanently delete that data so that even Google ceases to have access to it. We take the privacy concerns related to user location data seriously, and have worked hard to protect the privacy of users who share this data — but we still understand that not everybody will want to participate. If you’d like to stop your phone from sending anonymous location data back to Google, you can find opt-out instructions here.

More information about Google’s plan for traffic reporting via Google Maps can be found here and here. It’s an interesting concept, but Google Latitude creeped a lot of people out, despite Google’s privacy defense, so this probably won’t be much different. I have a hard time believing that enough people are going to be on board with this for it to really deliver accurate traffic information.

In a world that was inhabited entirely by users of the necessary phones and the will to help, it could be possible, but I think we have a ways to go before we get to that point. What are your thoughts on the concept? By the way, I hope checking Google Maps info on your phone while driving isn’t considered as dangerous as texting while driving. 

Let’s start with My Location.  For some time, this feature has allowed mobile users of Google Maps to have a small blue circle automatically show their location.  But now it’s come to the regular version of Google Maps, so people with laptops who move around (or people who somehow wind up in front of unfamiliar desktops) can more easily determine their position and what’s around them.

Note: We couldn’t get My Location to work, but a post on the LatLong Blog states, "Currently, you can use My Location in Google Maps if you use Google Chrome, Firefox 3.5 or any other web browser with Gears installed.  We hope to support other browsers soon too."

Then there’s an apparently as-yet-unnamed feature (found by Alex Chitu) that allows users to overlay different maps from their recent search history.  Efficiency experts should love it; if, for example, you want to get coffee, go shopping, see a movie, and grab pizza on the way home, you can search for all four different things, check a few boxes, and easily figure out waste the least amount of gas and time.

So if you’re doing a bit of traveling or just trying to save yourself some trouble, head over to Google Maps and check out the new offerings.

Google’s Geolocation API allows developers to deliver personalized data based on geographic targeting, and in developer-speak allows them to:

– Obtain the user’s current position, using the getCurrentPosition method

– Watch the user’s position as it changes over time, using the watchPosition method

– Quickly and cheaply obtain the user’s last known position, using the lastPosition property

Examples of applications Google cites that use the API are lastminute.com’s radar app and ITN’s Google Earth Mashup (pictured).

Developers will be happy to know that they can use the same code for both mobile phones and WiFi, and that it is supported by IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and will be soon by Opera. It is of course already supported by Android. Charles Wiles, the Product Manager of the Google Mobile Team writes on the Google Code Blog:

In Chrome and Android, with Gears built in, you can deliver a location enabled web site without requiring your users to install a plug-in, but in other browsers they will need to go through a simple plug-in install process. We also submitted a simplified version of the Geolocation API as a WC3 specification and the upcoming Firefox 3.1 plans to support the W3C version directly. The Gears Geolocation API is completely free to developers and users through the default Google location provider.

For laptop users this only means that around the world, they will be able to enjoy more geographically relevant information from applications created by a growing number of developers, which should ultimately make for a more useful and enjoyable experience with said applications. The WiFi-capability expansion also applies to Google’s My Location, the Google Mobile functionality that brings geographically relevant information to mobile phone users.

Think all blue circles are created equal?  Superimpose one over part of New York, slap another of equal size onto a map of Iowa, and you’ll see a huge difference in how many buildings (and floors within buildings) are encompassed.  My Location’s one-size-fits-all system was not ideal.

Now, as Zhengrong Ji explains on the Google Mobile Blog, "[T]he next time you’re using Google Maps in downtown Manhattan, expect to see a much smaller circle that’s also far more accurate.  Conversely, when you’re in a lightly populated area like rural Iowa, expect to see a much larger circle which also happens to be centered closer to your true location."

Urban users are more likely to welcome this change than folks who now face big circles, but everyone can thank an analysis of the density of cell towers for the upgrade.  And the upgrade is, after all, based on the idea of offering greater precision.

More info about My Location can be found in Chris Crum’s article on its recent expansion into the world of mobile search.

The new My Location feature of Google Maps for mobile can, if not exactly pinpoint users’ locations, at least put them in a smallish area.  “My Location . . . uses cell tower identification to provide you with approximate location information, so it will work on phones without GPS,” explains Mike Chu.

Chu, a software engineer on the Google mobile team, later continues, “My Location kicks in faster than GPS in most cases, so you can access your location even faster on the map. It also works reliably indoors (unlike GPS) and doesn’t drain your phone battery at the rate that GPS does.”  As an added bonus, it has one-button (“0”) access, as well.

Unfortunately, you will need a somewhat newer cell phone for My Location to work, and searches that stem from the use of My Location could transmit your location.  But use of the My Location technology alone will leave you anonymous, and Google’s already working to increase its accuracy and coverage.

Cell phone advancements don’t often do much for me, yet this is pretty darn cool.  Kudos to Google for releasing something so interesting and practical.